❀application for scorched;

[tochigami]

Out of Character Information

player name: lizzie!
player journal: heartwiring
playing here: kaoru kamiya from rurouni kenshin.
where did you find us? long long ago.
are you 16 years of age or older?: older!

In Character Information

Character Name: Nanami Momozono
Fandom: Kamisama Hajimemashita
Timeline:  Latest chapter translated, 81, after she uses the Incense Burner to go into Tomoe's past.
Character's age: 16/17. Her timepoint describes it as being a year since she came to the Mikage Shrine, and she was sixteen then, so I'm assuming she's seventeen now?
Powers, Skills, Pets and Equipment:
As Nanami is a fledging tochigami, or land god, that means she has her share of divine powers! As she's pretty inexperienced, she's gradually learning how to use them better than she was at the start. Here are a few:

Nanami's God Mark: This allows Nanami to see the supernatural, so in other words, spirits and the like. If she hadn't the god-mark, she wouldn't be able to see them! There is a way to remove it but as far as we can see, only gods seem to be able to do that!

Hearing Prayers/Granting them: As Nanami grows in her godhood, people who will offer prayers to her shrine will be heard by Nanami. As her duty as the god of the shrine, she will write them down and record them as heard. So if you have a prayer for her she will be able to hear that too!

Talismans:
Another part of Nanami's god powers is that she's able to write down something onto a talisman and by placing it on something, it takes the form of whatever she wrote. For example, in one instance she wanted to literally give a character a nudge, so she wrote their name on a tree, then nudged it with her hands. The result? The person buckled forward as if by invisible hands! Of course the command can't be more powerful than Nanami, however it's grown progressively stronger as her divine powers increase.

Purification:
Nanami is capable of purifying an area with her talismans. In essence, she can break down spiritual barriers, particularly with the help of her shikigami, Mamoru. When she does this she leaves trails of light that are visible when she moves.

Mamoru: As stated before, Nanami's monkey-like shikigami, able to sense all sorts of presences including that of her own. He can sense when evil presences are near and is naturally very fond of Nanami. Also he can appear at times to look like a small boy.
Basically an adorable little servant who helps Nanami utilize her spiritual powers.

Canon History: http://kamisamahajimemashita.wikia.com/wiki/Nanami_Momozono
 ( Also the spelling..is horrible. But it does have some info! )
 
Let's start from the beginning! A sixteen year old lives with her gambling, neglective father! Soon enough they lose everything, the Dad hightails it out of there and the girl, who had been beginning to live in poverty due to her father's debts, is tossed out into the street. With only a small bag and on her way to the park, she notices a weird man. Just so happens this man is the god of a shrine, and he's terrified of dogs. Shooing the dog away, Nanami helps the man out of the tree, and ends up sharing her current predicament. Taking pity on her, the man offers her his home instead, and Nanami is given a parting gift: a kiss. A bit bewildered, but desperately needing a place to stay, Nanami takes him up on his offer and heads to his home. Which happens to be a very rundown shrine. There she meets the fire demon children, Onikiri and Koutetsu--and a very angry fox youkai, Tomoe. After an appropriate freak-out, Nanami discovers that the kiss she was given? Was the exchange of Mikage's godhood transporting to her. Congrats, Nanami, you just became a sixteen year old deity.

Of course Tomoe, who was Mikage's last familiar, is hardly happy with this. He only feels he should serve Mikage, and won't serve some 'useless little girl'. To which they both have a heated fight that involves Tomoe leaving for the otherworld, a place full of demons and the like. The twin spirits plead with her to go after him, as he's necessary to bring the shrine back to it's former state. Tomoe's powers are what keep it going as it is, and to have him as her familiar is key. Nanami hardly has a good opinion of him at this point, but she follows along, ending up going to the otherworld where humans are easily seen as snacks. Once there, Nanami is of a mind to apologize to Tomoe, who she's seen evidence of hard work put in towards the shrine. However she comes along to find him gallavanting with two questionable tanuki women in the red light district, overhearing him say against Onikiri and Koutetsu's pleads that he could care less about the shrine, how glad he was to be free of it.

In anger, Nanami walks in, demands if it really is so easy to abandon his home when she herself had lost everything, having no real home to speak of. She leaves in anger, soon landing herself in a fair amount of trouble. On her way back in a huff to the Shrine, Onikiri and Koutetsu find her fleeing demons, one in particular, a witch, who lures Nanami into her home where she hopes to eat her. It's said that the flesh of a god will give you a thousand years worth of life. Nanami is told of this by the twin spirits, and of the ability to use talismans as a way of defending and making use of her godly powers.

They flee the witch's house, soon enough being trailed by her. All the while the twins beg her to use one of them to plead to Tomoe. If she should kiss him, then he would have no choice but to be her familiar, as the kiss would seal a contract between them. He would have no choice to obey her. As Nanami has now hit her limit, she sends the last talisman in hopes that Tomoe will save her. By the time he arrives, she's climbed up a tall tree with the witch on her heels, with no such intentions. Instead he mocks her, saying he came to watch idly. However! Should she beg on her life and apologize, he will come to her rescue. Nanami stubbornly says no, saying she'd rather die than grovel at the feet of someone like him. This fairly shocks him as she pulls on his leg, sending them both falling off the tree and towards what seems to be a certain death.

However, Nanami has other plans. Pulling Tomoe into a kiss, she seals the binding contract between them, ordering Tomoe to save her. As he has no real choice, he does so, and that begins their bond as familiar and god. Tomoe then decides from now on that he would instead work on making Nanami a god worthy of his greatness. But that will take quite a ways to go..

( If you'd like me to write the history all up until Chapter 81 I can do that too! It might take a while though! 8(;; )

Personality:

Above anything, Nanami is earnest. Just like the meaning of her name. Despite her unfortunate circumstances as a young girl cast out into the street, this doesn't really change her personality as a person. If nothing else, she's an enduring optimist. She wants to try hard, to live as best she can with whatever means she has. When Mikage stumbles upon her in the park, carrying only the clothes on her back and a small bag, instead of dwelling on her misfortunes, she smiles and congratulates him for having a home. Something so easily taken for granted, but to Nanami, is something priceless. Something she no longer has. A lot of the experiences Nanami goes through in life have made her a deeply empathetic person. She tends to come off as extremely simple, because despite how there are huge issues and gaps between demons and humans, to Nanami, it's just one person communicating with another, no attachments but that.

It causes Tomoe and her friends some considerable frustration as she can be oblivious to the dangers of being so unaware. Her opinions on the matter is that as long as you love someone, what type of being you are shouldn't matter. She very wisely explains to Tomoe when matchmaking Kotarou and Himemiko together, that despite how Himemiko is a youkai, that on her part, "all girls have these feelings" all girls, no matter what kind, fall in love. In a lot of ways she's wiser than her years, having had to rely on herself for so much, has made her become an extremely independent person. It wasn't exactly as if she could rely on her father, and her mother died when she was young. This has set her up to be extremely willful.  Even with her own romantic feelings, the imprint of her mother encouraging her as a young child to never marry a man (as Nanami had a neglectful Father for an example) is still something Nanami was influenced by  even to this day. Above all, Nanami realizes that first she must depend on herself, before looking to rely on others.

Not to mention if you are thrust into a new world with demons, gods and spirits--it's really important that you keep a good head on your shoulders, something Nanami does very well. Of course, she's still a teenager, and she has her moments of freaking out. One of the most obvious is her steadily growing feelings for her familiar, Tomoe. She finds herself bewildered at why she 'blushes' around him, finding that when she grows embarassed that she will become increasingly silly, babbling about the weather or even avoiding them like any love-struck girl would do. However, there is one thing that sets Nanami quite different from most lovestruck girls her age.

Even when Tomoe rejects her, Nanami instead of giving up, addresses her feelings seriously.

 

"I can't control these feelings." 

She realizes that even though she knows that Tomoe most likely doesn't feel the same, she still realizes that this won't stop her from loving him. If anything, she falls in love with him more, even though she makes quite a few comments to herself at the loneliness of being in love by herself. If anything, Nanami's love for Tomoe shows how bold and brave she can actually be. She tells him once that even if he never loves her, her feelings will 'never change'. That to her, due to some good perception skills and a lot of understanding, has seen Tomoe for who he is. A person that Nanami loves. She remarks that despite Tomoe's often foul mouth and rude behavior towards her, that his hands are 'gentle' and that she doesn't 'hate those hands'. She's really pretty smart on seeing people for who they are instead of how they come across. When she enters Tomoe's past and sees how he was centuries ago, a rather bloodthirsty demon, she decides that instead of cutting off any sort of relationship with him in the future, that instead, she chooses the Tomoe she knows, the Tomoe she loves, because she feels that is how Tomoe chooses to be. So she'll stand with him.

It can be noted that Nanami is pretty accepting; staunchly loyal to the people she believes deserve it. Though it's obvious she has a very soft spot for Tomoe. She's not above having insecurity though, and many times in the manga does she show examples of worrying what Tomoe really feels about her, even though she 'knows' that Tomoe doesn't like her in that way, she still finds his opinion of her is priceless to her. In a lot of ways, Nanami strives to become a better goddess because of Tomoe's faith and support in her, along with everyone else she's come to know. She's really very devoted to the people she loves.

Nanami is also very honest with herself, aware of her limits and what's beyond her means. She admits in the beginning that she's really only a normal highschool girl, not really material to be a divine being and yet she soon resolves to do the very best she can as one  She says she'll try her hardest, and not because she herself has any real desire to be glorified or honored as a human-god, but because it's the responsibility passed onto her by Mikage. She's seen the value of the shrine to Tomoe, the person she loves, Onikiri and Koutetsu, the spirits who've dwelled there for centuries, and it's the affection and bond she has with them that makes her all the more determined not to disappoint them, not to disappoint the place that has quickly become her home.
 
In that sense, she's extremely earnest, and despite knowing her limits as a human in a world full of immortals, spirits and monsters, that doesn't stop her from pressing pass them because she refuses to sit and do nothing, human or not. When in Yomi no Kuni, instead of abandoning a spiteful, pretty evil person named Kirihito who is traveling with her, she resolves to stay, becoming a resident even if she can never return to the shrine she loves. She often does these things in the spur of the moment, not always thinking about the consequences but she never really shows much regret for making such sacrifices to her own personal wellbeing. Nanami never does things half-heartedly.

In that sense, she is is extremely unselfish though at times it can come as a personal cost to herself. To Tomoe, who when it seems he might not be her familiar any longer, decides that even if he doesn't she wouldn't want him to be tied down to her. She'd rather him be happy and free, instead of tethered to her, despite her obvious feelings of wanting him at her side. When Tomoe's life is in danger, she even goes so far as to willingly sacrifice 30 years off her life in exchange for the promise of his safety.

She willingly will throw herself into danger for even the most hateful person, because to her, it's not even something she thinks about. She doesn't question it, she does it because why wouldn't she? She can come across as very reckless when she wants to help someone, daunting many people because really, you're just a highschool teenager, a human girl, what can you possibly do in a world like this? It's often Nanami's very determined, resolute nature that throws off even the most powerful of gods due to her exuberance, earnestness and often reckless courage.

With traits like this, it's clear Nanami is extremely kindhearted. Even when she is held in compromising situations, such as when Mizuki captures her, she goes so far as to sympathize with him and once again, show strong empathy. Because she can see how lonely he has been without a god to serve, she imagines how Tomoe might feel, and it connects her to him in a way that isn't entirely resentful, despite how he's treated her. When she meets Kayako, a human-made god with pyschic powers, who was really not particularly kind to her at all, she can relate to her feelings of having someone she loves, and this makes her not only treat her more kindly, but she resolves to even speak on her behalf when she is chosen to go to the God Summit instead of her. She's well aware how painful it was for her to lose, and shows no gloating in it, as Kayako was manipulated by the person she loves and the gods, she instead goes demanding that they give her a formal apology.

Of course, Nanami isn't perfect. While she is divine now, that doesn't change that she's still a young girl in some ways, despite her maturity. At times her temper is seen most with people she speaks to who tend to grate on her nerves. She has no trouble telling someone she doesn't like them, and even goes so far as to bluntly state it. Her bluntness is one of her strong points, but many times it does nothing but baffle other people. Nanami can also be pretty jealous. When she discovers that Yukiji was an important woman in Tomoe's past, she glumly ends up interrogating Tomoe about it, yelling at him for not telling her the truth about her when in reality he cannot remember her due to the circumstances surrounding him. She bluntly tells him she hates being lied to and storms off in a huff. Many times her temper is best seen with Tomoe, where she will go so far as to throw her shoe at his head, demand that he kneel in the ground for a few days (as she literally can have the Word of God over him if she wants to) and can get heated just as much as the next person! She has her moments of insecurity, of being too simplistic about a complicated situation and can be naive at times. She can even be quite clumsy, being particularly oblivious about some manners of conduct in the world of gods and youkai.

However despite all this, Nanami really is a strong, compassionate heroine. She's not overly dependent on someone else, because life has taught her that's not how you can live. Despite being faced with Tomoe not being her familiar, she tells herself (despite her feelings) that she can "still live a happy life" without him. She's very strong for such an age, and does try to do things with her own power, even if to all the gods, demons and spirits who are watching her, it doesn't seem like she can do anything.

Above all, Nanami has heart and spirit. And it shows.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting? I think for one, like Kaoru, Nanami is an optimist. No matter how hard things get for her, she trudges right through it. Also while she's pretty weak physically, her strong heart has seen her through many difficult situations in her storyline. As a girl who was abandoned by her dad, made to live out her life as homeless if not for Mikage, she's seen some pretty painful things for her short years. Yet despite that, it sure doesn't get in the way of her making friends, encouraging others, and going the extra mile for everyone she meets, even strangers.

Writing Samples

Network Post Sample:

Eh?!

[What appears to be a frazzled teenager girl appears on the Forge, eyes wide in her face. Every inch of her screams confusion.]

This can't be Tomoe's past...this sort of thing looks more like a television than something from his past. What's going on?

[She looks around, anywhere but the forge, looking fairly frantic.]

Mizuki where did you send me? This can't be right..

[Nanami swallows; looking fairly stricken with herself before she peers back into the forge again, brows furrowing. Her voice is nothing short of an earnest plead.]

Can anyone hear me?! Please, I need to know where I am. I think there's been a mistake! Mizuki?!

[There's a long, strained pause, for a minute she's frozen, staring in distraught helplessness before she lowers her eyes: ]

This isn't good..

[The Forge cuts out.]


Third Person Sample:
Nanami went under with nothing but determination in mind.  Just wait, Tomoe! I'll definitely fix things!
How could she have considered giving up? 

Her eyes began to close, the familiar sensation of weightlessness began to fill her body. There was fog, there was mist. It all seemed familiar. Though her body went to sleep, her soul was somewhere else entirely. Soon enough, her eyes opened.

She began to right herself, moving around in the fog as she started looking around.

It looked empty.

"..This doesn't look like Tomoe's past. For one, the fog isn't clearing.." Her voice was a low murmur, looking around with furrowed brows.
And we don't have time to make mistakes either. What did you do, Mizuki?

She could hardly blame her other familiar, maybe something had gone wrong beyond either of their control. Of all the times for it to! We don't have time, She thought again, thinking of everyone back at the shrine, of Mikage-san's words. 

Lingering on what had happened would do her no good now. The only way to move was forwards. She had to change Tomoe's past; there was no other option. She couldn't let him die, she wouldn't.  It was thoughts like this, of his smile, of how important he was to her, to everyone at the shrine, that made her stand up again, face set in resolve.

 Dusting herself off, she began to run through the fog as best she could, despite how it clouded her eyes. When her heart wavered, when she felt herself slowing, she needed only to think of Tomoe, of everyone at home waiting for her to make things right, and she'd move faster once again.

Mikage-san, Mizuki, Onikiri-kun, Koutetsu-kun..Tomoe.
I'll bring Tomoe back. I'll make everything alright. .

She had a few days to save Tomoe, and she would make them count, even if it seemed she was already lost at the start. After a long while, the fog still all around her, Nanami paused to catch her breath, hands on her knees.

"I can't tell if I've made any progress or not--..." She muttered, looking up as she wiped the sweat off her brow. There appeared to be a large door, by the looks of it. For a minute she stood still, staring at it with puzzled eyes before it began to open----pulling Nanami into it.

Anything else?
Thank you for reading!!!