[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/8HJCzrY.jpg[/img]

[color=Khaki]"Just keep smiling. Be happy. You have to [/color][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA91D7po6Bs&ab_channel=DanLMMusic]believe[/url][color=Khaki] that things will turn out for the best, and they will."[/color]

Carmen Brass · 20 · Male
☀ The Sun ☀ [/center]

[u]Appearance:[/u]
Standing at a towering 6'7', Carmen is slim but well-built. What he lacks in bulk he makes up for in corded muscle, often surprising others with his strength. His skin is bronzed from his days outside practicing with his Zweihander at home or playing guitar in the park. His eyes are a stunning gold color, which adds to his natural charm and mystery. He prefers to dress at least semi-formal most of the time, but he's happy to make exceptions when the weather or venue calls for it. He's a sucker for beach trips.

His favorite set of clothing is a simple shirt, a pair of slacks, and comfortable black seude dress shoes. He'll don his father's old brown aviator jacket if it's getting chilly outside.

Carmen is almost always seen with his [url=http://thehub.musiciansfriend.com/images/yamaha-fs700s-solid-top-concert-acoustic-guitar.jpg]guitar[/url] case strapped to his back. There has never been, is not, and never will be a situation that doesn't call for music.

[u]Personality:[/u]
Carmen fits comfortably into the 'quiet-type' category. He prefers to listen instead of speak, to reflect upon what has been said before replying. His long pauses before replying drive some people mad, but Carmen makes sure to say what he means the first time on all occasions. He is honest almost to a fault, meaning that people he doesn't frustrate with his pauses are often turned off by his openness. People that can look past this will find that Carmen, in spite of his oddities, is a surprisingly down-to-earth and philosophical individual with a warm and friendly disposition.

While he's normally quiet and reserved, you can sometimes catch him singing when the park isn't too busy. There are few times where he's more at peace than when he's sat on the grass and spilling his heart to the wind through song.

His tendency to turn people off with his mannerisms doesn't bother him much, especially when he suffers from commitment issues due to his past. He's always had trouble making friends, but as he was moved from place to place, it was even harder to maintain a friendship after it was established. Why bother forming a bond when its just going to be severed within a few years? This leads Carmen to be more reserved when first approached.

Carmen is an outdoors-man, through and through. He hates being indoors for more than an hour or two at a time, and can often times be found either napping on the grass at the park or strolling around through it barefoot while he plucks away at his guitar. People have jokingly compared him to a plant; He'd likely wither away and die without the touch of the sun on his skin, or the feel of wind blowing through his hair. Carmen is a very calm and friendly person, but if he's forced to stay inside for more than a few hours he become irritable and twitchy.

Carmen has a strong pull toward medical practices as well, which is a point of conflict; He wants to study to become a doctor, but he's absolutely terrified by the thought of not being able to save his patients. After watching so many of his family succumb to terminal illness, withering away until they're nothing but husks, he's left conflicted; Does he pursue a cure to keep others from experiencing the same pain, or does he turn away from it?


[u]Background:[/u]

Carmen has a multi-cultural past, beginning in the United States of America. He was born the son of Hisako and Damian Brass. His mother, Yumi Hisako, was an immigrant from Japan, and his father's family came from Belgium. His mother's job as a translator and his father's job as a representative working for a German car company set him up for a comfortable early childhood sat in upper-middle-class, with semi-frequent trips to both Japan and Germany during school holidays. His parents made it a point to show him how large the world truly was, often going on hikes and camping trips all across the globe and showering him in cultural diversity.

The boy grew up surrounded by three different major cultures, with a few others bleeding in thanks to school life in the land of opportunity. His ability to speak three languages was something of a novelty when he was in elementary school, but it quickly became a curse once he entered middle school. He was an oddity, someone with a funny accent and an odd personality. The perfect target for other adolescents coming into puberty and needing to try and assert dominance. Growing tensions withing the company his father worked for, combined with numerous visits to the school's councilor and his mother's health slowly starting to decay, pushed the family into moving to Germany.

He found school life in Germany much the same as he had in the States. Other children picked on him for being the odd-man-out, only this time he didn't have his small handful of gradeschool friends to fall back on. And, after his mother was soon diagnosed with cancer, he fell into a state of despair. His father did his best to continue supporting his family, but there was only so much he could do on his own. His wealthy parents had disowned him when he decided to move to the states and marry a foreign woman, and Hisako's family simply didn't have the money to assist.

Carmen eventually found solace in music. His father was looking for old items to pawn in an attempt to gather money for his mother's treatment and came across his old guitar. Instead of selling it, he gave it to Carmen, and told him to play it when he was starting to feel down. The young man was a natural with the old six-string, showing skill almost on par with a musical prodigy. Much of Carmen's free time from that point on was spent busking for money in the subways around his home. Carmen was given his family's Zweihander as well, a weapon that had been passed down for hundreds of years and reforged a multitude of times. This sparked Carmen's interest in HEMA, or Historical European Martial Arts, the classes for which he paid for using his busking money.

Unfortunately, despite the efforts of both himself and his father, Carmen's mother succumbed to her disease. Carmen's father, torn apart by grief and stress from both medical bills and work, suffered a mental breakdown and killed himself shortly after. Carmen, left alone in Germany at the age of 16, was on the brink of being put into a foster system when Hisako's father decided to claim guardianship. The old man used most of his savings to move Carmen to Kantou City to help run his bakery, due to both familial obligation and because he'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. His close family had moved from Kantou, and with his wife having passed away a few years prior, the old man was going to need someone to assist him. 

The old man was surprised to find Carmen wasn't as emotionally scarred as most children his age would be. The young man managed to maintain his cheery and calm disposition, which his grandfather found endearing. Carmen's grandfather was careful to cultivate that positivity, assuring him that it would help him through many of life's hardships. "Smile in the face of adversity," He'd say. "Its the troubles in life that make us stronger, and if you can come out of them happy, you'll be stronger than Hercules."

Carmen is currently attending Kantou University for a medical degree, though his progress is slowed by his hesitation of watching others wither and die as he has the rest of his family. He helps run his grandfather's bakery, as the old man's Alzheimer's is starting to show, adding more fuel to Carmen's fears.

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[center][img]http://www.rockislandauction.com/photos/58/p_standard/DJY4115-H-O1-O.jpg[/img]

Zweihander · Slash Damage
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Appearance:
Carmen's Zweihander has a black pommel wrap and standard steel blade, and sports a total length of 5.5 feet in length. 

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[hider=Persona]

[center][img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-THam38W5um0/VFeRZlgIYWI/AAAAAAAABg8/JhNGeXj_Xzs/s1600/Praise-The-Sun-.jpg[/img]

[color=yellow][h1]Apollo, god of the sun[/h1][/color][/center]

Arcana:
The Sun

Strength:
Fire (Agi), Hama (Light)
 
Weakness:
Dark (Mudo), Ice (Bufu)
 
History:

The Greek god Apollo and his twin sister Artemis were born to Leto. The birth of the twins was not an easy one, for their poor mother Leto had been pursued throughout her pregnancy by a gigantic serpent named Python and had never been allowed a moment’s rest. Going into labor, she finally found a safe, secluded spot where she could deliver the twins Apollo and Artemis.

Following his dramatic debut with the Python, he went on to become not only an unerring archer, but the best musician (playing a lyre given to him by his half-brother Hermes), poet, philosopher, law maker and creator of legal institutions, a masterful physician, the god of prophecy, and a great scholar who always spoke the truth.

Apollo’s skill and determination were evident at a very early age. When he was only 4 days old, he took his bow and arrow and went out in search of the snake that had tormented his mother during her pregnancy. Finding the snake named Python, who was said to measure several acres in length, he wounded her with his first shot. The serpent fled to her temple in Delphi, but Apollo killed her and claimed it for his own.

Apollo was given a golden chariot pulled by swans by his father Zeus, which he used to pull the sun across the sky. He was an unparalleled archer, healer, and the God of Oracles.

1. Hama (Light, insta-kill)
2. Agi (Fire, light damage x 1) 
3. Slash (one target)
4. unlocked at first social link, upgraded at rank 6. 
5. Unlocked second social link, upgraded at rank 7. 
6. unlocked after having a rank 4 social link w/ someone, upgraded at rank 8.
7. unlocked after having a rank 4 social link w/ someone else, upgraded at rank 9. 
8. Unlocked after rank 5 social link w someone, upgraded at rank 10.  

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Social Link Rankings
 [list]
    [*] Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10
    [*] Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10
    [*] Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10
    [/list]