GUIDE.

• biography.
• history.
• destinations.

001.    This blog is 21+ and mutuals only, so if you follow me first, please wait till I follow you back before engaging in any way. I softblock if we haven't interacted for two months, but interactions don't equal writing; chatting, sending memes and replying to posts count just as much. Finally, please at least have a name, age and rules page listed or I won't follow you back.001 - 1.    It goes without saying, but if I follow you, I want to write with you! If I feel like we could get up to shenanigans, no matter the source material, I will manifest inside your cupboards. Chatting, plotting and discovering common interests goes a long way with me!002.     Rei is a character of my own creation, one that I've had since around 2021. My approach to his lore has changed in the last four years: he's evolved from a D&D OC I made on a whim into a fandomless character, rooted in Japanese mythology + spirituality plus the lore lovingly merged with @giriure's own. I strive to handle this with great respect as I'm constantly doing my research.002 - 1.     Rei may have a manga fc but I am not affiliated with the anime rpc. Do not conflate these two facts; I want nothing to do with that space.003.    I use standard sized text for my posts and I avoid flowery purple prose and heavy formatting; if I have to use a thesaurus to decode your reply or your formatting puts strain on my vision (heavily spaced or formatted text, lots of coloring, screenshot replies / pinned posts, etc), I'm unlikely to follow. I'm a staunch supporter of accessibility over aesthetics.004.    STANDARD SOCIAL ETIQUETTE APPLIES, aka, please be fucking normal. Communicate, be considerate, have some thoughts about what you write and what you put out there. When I say I encourage communication, I mean it: I want to be spoken to, especially if issues arise; we're grown adults, and we should be able to talk things out as such.

005.     Necessary content warnings for Rei's lore are as follows: violence, child death, drug / narcotics use, existential exhaustion, grief, and death itself as a topic of discussion / overarching theme. Everything will be tagged accordingly.006.    Again, standard social etiquette applies. I will engage with callouts accordingly; I keep that shit to myself and prefer to discuss that privately, but that doesn't mean I'm a neutral bystander. I can and will make my own informed decisions.007.    DNI if you write and / or are friends with Tuvalo / Valo (@slaughtician / strayfolk / punkgrel / whatever blog he makes next). I'm but a blip in the list of people he's hurt and mistreated, but that doesn't matter: I still refuse to have him in my vicinity. If I happen to follow you first and this applies to you, feel free to block me; I won't take it personally.008.    PLEASE RESPECT MY ACTIVITY. I work in health care, which is exhausting, and therefore I manage my messages at varying speeds. Lastly, I DO NOT GIVE OUT MY DISCORD SIMPLY TO PLOT. I know tumblr IMs can be a pain in the ass, but I prefer OOC chemistry before sharing discords.

AUTHOR.

Vanto, 30, he + they pronouns, Mountain Standard Time. Villain enthusiast and yapper supreme. If these rules sound tired, it's because I am. We're literally just here to write and vibe; it takes less effort than you think to be a decent person. I'm chronically offline and I'm simply here to write my fictional characters because this is a hobby, not a jobby. This blog is permanently low activity, aka I'll be here when I want to be.blogroll: the vampire Emiel Regis, Gustave, multimuse.

UMEBAYASHI REI.

• guidelines.
• history.
• destinations.

YOU CAME.       “So I did.”
YOU WISH TO LIVE.   “I wish to die a good death.”
YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE.    “So be it.”

FULL NAME.
Umebayashi Rei (梅林霊). He goes by Rei more often than not, and will introduce himself as such. Some nicknames for him include Umeko ("plum child") on account of his provenance, and Samui - san (quite literally, "cold") due to the frosty appearance of his eyes.DATE OF BIRTH.
4th of February, on a cold night. He estimates the year of his birth to be 1304. Appears to be in his mid - thirties, but is now technically immortal.GENDER.
AMAB gender nonconforming. Rei often expresses this (and explores their more feminine side) through his wardrobe. They will alternate quite often between male and female fashions, though they default to a more traditionally masculine presentation while on the road for the sake of practicality. Rei also alternates pronouns, preferring THEY/HE interchangeably.SEXUALITY.
Biromantic (there is no gender distinction for him; cis or trans, it matters little to them!) &. demisexual.ETHNICITY.
Japanese.AFFILIATION.
The Heartless God, Mikazuki Mami but in a very "chase throughout the centuries" type of way, Kagami no Mizushima (adventuring partner and eventual wife).PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.
Brown - black hair, stupidly long; reaches well past the small of his back. Wears it either gathered up in a low ponytail or fully loose. Formerly brown, now ice blue eyes; surprisingly devoid of pupils. Sharp face, rounded chin, youthful features that never seem to age.

HEIGHT & BUILD.
5 feet, 10 inches. Rei possesses a swordsman's build, characterized by a thin waist and a muscular &. toned upper body. He's a fan of exercising and does all he can to stay in shape.PIERCINGS.
Three red studs on each ear. Sometimes he'll wear a longer, more intricate earring on his right ear.OTHER MARKINGS.
The mark of the Heartless God, tattooed in black living ink upon his tongue.VOICECLAIM.
Uchiya Yuya (listen here.)POSITIVE: lively, polite, carefree, empathetic, protective.
NEUTRAL: intense, outspoken, reserved, pragmatic.
NEGATIVE: morbid, self - deprecating, clumsy, possesses a tendency to overthink.
MBTI: ESTP, The Entrepreneur.
WESTERN ZODIAC: Aquarius.When people think of warlocks and exorcists, a man like Umebayashi Rei is the last person to ever come to mind. Excitable, enthusiastic and lively, they are the definition of a helper, an errant figure with no apparent purpose other than that of mingling. His smile hides a morbid sense of humor and a particular disposition towards death, tools that Rei employs when dealing with creatures of all sorts, be they the spirits of the departed or something far more sinister.Saved as a child by the Heartless God and then accepted as its envoy, Rei has taken on the task of a lifetime: to track down Mana Sevaess and free the souls that she keeps trapped in an endless cycle of punishment, life and death.INSPIRATIONS & INFLUENCES.
Sekiro (Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), Yuna (Final Fantasy X), Sanageyama Uzu (Kill la Kill), Nanashi (Sword of the Stranger), Kusuriuri (Mononoke.)

There is always someone bound to disturb what should be left alone, and there is always an entity that should be left undisturbed. Village folk called it The Heartless God: a thing of legend, the stuff of nightmares, the survivor of a ritual pyre that occurred many a century ago. Its name is invoked by the elders as a boogeyman to scare children into good behavior, but it has never been as heartless as many claim. It is the reason why their crops prosper, why their plum trees give fruit every year. Its blood is what waters their flowers. As such, it is worshipped; as such, it is loved.Rei met his village's god at the bottom of an old well, boarded up, fraught with dryness and misuse. They followed the anguished wailing of a child down to its depths once, and hurried back to the surface when only a shambling skeleton, skin just barely taut over bone, greeted Rei's descent. "It sounded like Takehito," a shivering Rei would tell their mother over a split persimmon. "Takehito passed already, darling," Wakako would say while combing her child's hair. Grief does terrible things to a child, especially one who just recently lost their best friend.The second descent into the well happens on a summer evening, not long before the sun begins to set. This descent ends in disaster: their rope snaps, Rei scrambles against the well's rocks, but they fall anyway. With both ankles broken, there's no way Rei will make it back to the village. He tries to stifle his crying in the dark, because the same shambling skeleton they saw the first time is here again and will likely kill them if it hears them. I don't want to die. Rei shuts his eyes and eventually succumbs to the pain: he cries and yells for help. The dark answered his pleas first.His mother and a few farmers rescue him the following morning. Wakako nurses him back to health and though Rei's body recovers well, his mind is fundamentally changed. Specters hound his vision and his dreams. His smile withers and languishes, akin to a wilting flower, and he never leaves the village anymore. Eventually he tells Wakako what he saw, why they went into the well, and they cry to the point of exhaustion. They miss Takehito a great deal.

At the age of fifteen, he met Takehito's ghost in the graveyard over the western hills. His childhood friend spoke at length about the Heartless God, of its dwindling power, of how it somehow tethers spirits like his to the world and prevents them from passing peacefully. "How do I help you?" asks Rei to a specter he cannot comfort. "Train. Learn the art of the sword and purification. Then it'll call," says Takehito, and he points in the direction of the old well. In spite of himself, Rei knows what he must do: he leaves Takehito in the graveyard, vowing to return no matter how many winters it may take him.Years pass, snow falls. Rei is no longer a young man with a wilting smile but a swordsman of great skill; he is his mother's pride and joy. At the age of thirty, Rei returns not to the graveyard but to the old well. He descends to its empty depths one more time, and the wandering corpse is no longer there. Hope and determination burn bright within their breast: they call for the Heartless God, and they bid it answer. It answers, because of course it does: it's been waiting for their arrival, their demand for help and for power ... and for a good end. The only thing Rei wants is to help Takehito rest. The god understands, and it puts forth a bargain.The village's legends are true; the ritual burnings that engendered the god were as real as the sun and the wind, and it is after them that the god sought refuge away from humans. But still it came to care for those that settled in its territory, and thus became their hidden protector. Life as they know it, however, is endangered by She Born of the Eye, a famed destroyer and dealer of death. Some souls do not pass as they should. The Heartless God is losing its grip upon death itself.Rei leaves the well having pledged themselves to its service, and they are made a hunter and a cleanser. The mark of the Heartless God burns itself onto their tongue, their life energy stretched through the eons, their body halted and dutifully preserved. As the envoy of their god, Rei embarks on a search of Mikazuki Mami, hoping to put an end to their cycle of grief and destruction, and to recover the two souls that their agony holds hostage.

MAIN VERSE. * ✦. | a century or seven; i shall see our agonies purified.Rei, the wandering warlock. As the chosen of the Heartless God, they have embarked on their lifelong mission: to chase down Mikazuki Mami, and free the souls that this destroyer has spirited away and trapped in a cycle of endless reincarnation and grief.

CYBERPUNK 2077. * ✦. | the tale of the cybersamurai.Rei, the chromed - up samurai. There's no better way to have Night City in your veins than being born in it, and it turns out that you know Japantown better than most. The Tyger Claws too, come to think of it. They had Rei under their yoke once, head kept down by the weight of blackmail, until he simply cut it off         as well as the Claws', of course. Now, Rei has taken to a lifestyle in the arts as both a poet and a famed koto player, but moonlights as a hired blade and huscle for jobs that need a keen edge: that of his blade.

DUNGEONS &. DRAGONS. * ✦. | the cleansing blade of kozakura.Rei, the undying bardlock. Hailing from the Kozakuran archipelago, Rei has made a living in the mainland as a performer and a master of the arcane, particularly as it relates to the supernatural abilities granted by otherworldly patrons. Forever in service to his own patron, the Heartless God, he hops from one adventure to the other, having survived even Auril, the Frostmaiden alongside a now - disbanded group of steadfast companions.

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS. * ✦. | the way of mikazuki.
TBA.

MONSTER HUNTER WILDS. * ✦. | a glaive to gut the wraith.
TBA.

THE WITCHER. * ✦. | wield the monster in a world of monsters and men.Rei, the errant bard. Hailing from beyond the Western seas, he wields a power not unlike that of Chaos, and employs tools and concoctions not unlike those of a witcher. For at least two centuries he has lived within the known continent as an anonymous poet, bard, and the hunter of Giriure         a creature of legend, evasive nature, and great destructive power.