Etraya application

[sacrificialpawn]

⏵ player information
name and pronouns: Luna; she/her
age: 18+
contact: LunaHoshino @ Plurk and Disco

⏵ character information
name: Oscar
canon: Evil Prince and the Puppet
age: 26
canon point: Chapter 8, after his and Eric's discussion
history: Since his wiki doesn't really include anything that isn't from his official page...
Born to a prostitute in the slums of the town of Oleander in the Aquilegian Empire, Oscar’s life has been anything but charmed. He’s never even met his father, and he lived in abject poverty for his early years until his mother died of an illness after they were unable to afford the medication needed to treat it until it was too late. After that, he was raised in the orphanage until he joined the military at a young age as a way to do something with his life. He was able to work his way up through the ranks thanks to his impressive combat prowess, though this came with the drawback of resulting in him being forcibly conscripted into a secret special forces unit whose role is to do "dirty jobs," including exterminating any dissidents within the military before they become a larger problem. As a result, he’s carried out multiple assassinations of his very own comrades under orders from above, much as he hates it.
Five years ago, he was assigned a young officer named Claude under his command. The third son of the Aquilegian emperor but so far removed from the line of succession that he has no hope of ever inheriting the throne, Claude has instead been striving to achieve a place for himself in terms of military achievements in order to guarantee a secure future for his mother (a common concubine) and younger sister; when he saw Oscar in combat in a backwater frontier unit, he was instantly drawn to the man’s strength and wanted him for the main Aquilegian army (there’s a certain amount of implication that this is in no small part due to the fact that he knows that Oscar can and will be capable of killing him when he turns into a demon, but this has yet to be explicitly confirmed). It’s implied that Claude pulled strings to get Oscar moved to the main forces and then got himself positioned under Oscar. All of this would have been unremarkable were it not for a certain event…
Now, unfortunately, canon has yet to give us the specific details of this particular moment in time, but what we do know is this: the Red Moon Calamity occurred in Garancia (a “calamity” is a large-scale magical disaster triggered by a powerful demon) and Oscar and Claude were both present in the immediate aftermath. This incident gave Oscar the scar on his face and the darker segment of hair, something happened that resulted in the death of Oscar’s best friend (which he has blamed himself for ever since), Claude apparently did some shady enough shit for the lingering resentment from it to cause curses to manifest five years later, and Oscar found out about Claude’s deepest secret, namely the fact that he’s marked with the Curse of Demon Possession which will result in Claude becoming a demon himself one day.
Whatever the exact details, this event left Oscar permanently scarred both physically and emotionally. Because he believed that he shouldn’t even be alive after that, he willingly devoted himself to carrying out all of Claude’s (now Oscar’s superior instead of the other way around) orders and keeping that secret, no matter what it might take, and the two of them fell into an incredibly close but equally codependent relationship where Claude provides Oscar with a reason to keep on living while Oscar does all of Claude’s dirty work (including silencing anyone who accidentally finds out about the curse) so that Claude doesn’t have to do it himself. The official relationship chart describes their relationship as being one of “warped trust”— it’s at once good for both of them in the sense they need the emotional support they get from each other but also very, very NOT good in multiple other ways. They trust each other at the same time they DON’T trust each other, they really can’t function without each other, and looking after Claude is helping Oscar heal in its own way even as it damages his mental health even further in others. They’re a mess, Your Honor.
At the start of canon itself, Claude chooses to share the purification powers he’s obtained from the Tuner (the player character) with Oscar and Eric to allow them to purify the curses (sort of like a powerful negative energy created from strong lingering feelings; touching it will kill a human and turn them into a creature known as a shade, and the only way to kill/destroy these creatures is to use mana to purify them) that spring up around Aquilegia, and Oscar ends up being assigned several missions wherein he does just that. On one such mission he, Claude, and Eric stumble across Rosé Belladonna talking with some other demons about collaborating with another demon family to set off a calamity in the human world; realizing that the upper officials in the Aquilegian army won’t take such information seriously without more concrete details, the three of them set out to learn as much as they can about the plans for the calamity and also put a stop to it. Sneaking into the Belladonna mansion ensues, Claude tries to make a literal deal with the devil (Rosé’s brother Adder, head of the Belladonna family) by offering to tell Adder the location of Aquilegia’s Jewel (a necessary ingredient for a calamity) in exchange for information about where the calamity is going to occur, things don’t go too well, and the three of them only manage to escape with their lives because Adder ultimately decides to accept Claude’s deal. As Claude has hidden the real Aquilegia Jewel (or so he thinks), they head to Garancia in an attempt to secure the Jewel there and encounter two of the angels along with Dia, Espada, and Fiori, who are all attempting to do the same thing. The group agrees that Fiori (the princess of Garancia) should take the Jewel to Gypsophila, the heavenly realm, and give it to Mere (one of the higher-ranking angels) for safekeeping. Oscar volunteers to bodyguard her for the trip, and the two of them set off for Gypsophila in search of Mere.
Unfortunately, all of this is for naught, as Adder and his accomplice, the fallen angel Vanis, are able to use Dia to trigger a calamity anyway, with Garancia once more bearing the brunt of the destruction. Things are only kept from being worse than they could have been thanks to the Tuner giving up a part of their soul in order to mitigate the damage and save Dia. In the aftermath, Claude is lauded as a hero for his efforts in aiding people, much to Oscar's dismay, as he worries that Claude is drawing too much attention to himself and putting himself at risk in the process. And Eric is starting to connect the dots when it comes to just what Claude and Oscar have been doing in the shadows...

abilities: Oscar is just an ordinary human, so nothing magical or supernatural here! (Save for his ability to purify curses, but that a) is something that was granted to him via an external source rather than an ability of his own, and b) something that is irrelevant outside of canon itself.)
- Physical strength/combat prowess: Oscar is one of the (if not the) strongest swordsmen in the entire Aquilegia Empire, stated to be capable of going toe-to-toe with demons in battle (he actually solos an entire group of them in his SSR card story and comes out of it alive, and it was his ferocity in combat that initially attracted Claude’s attention to him). This is an exceptional rarity among humans, and it’s notable enough that Rosé (one of the demons) has his eye on Oscar as a potential magical research subject due to his strength, and Espada (a half-demon) wants to go up against him in a fight as a test of his own skills. We know that he also knows how to wield a gun (though it’s noted that he’s not as skilled on that front as Eric, the sniper of the team), and although we haven’t seen him use them in canon yet, his official profile states that he specializes in martial arts/taijutsu as well. We also see him literally dodge bullets in his relationship skits with Eric, so not only is he strong, he’s incredibly agile and good at reading his opponent’s moves as well. Basically, this guy is a force of nature on the battlefield and he takes a great amount of pride in that fact.
- Cooking ability: Oscar definitely does not look like the sort of guy who would be an excellent chef, and yet he is. There isn’t a single person in canon who has tried his cooking and hasn’t praised it (and if you level up his bond with Claude enough, Claude will feel the need to inform you constantly about how much he loves Oscar’s cooking--), though Oscar is always quick to blow off any praise and insist that he just cooks “guy food” that isn’t much to look at. Multiple characters note that he has an excellent sense for seasonings/flavor, and though he says he doesn’t tend to like cooking fancy stuff that requires a ton of ingredients, he’s quite capable of it if he’s cooking for someone who actually wants to eat that kind of thing. He’s good enough that he gets pulled in as a substitute chef in one card story when the cook at his usual tavern haunt is out sick, and while he grumbles, it’s clear that he really does enjoy doing it.
- Musical/singing ability: Oscar is quite fond of playing his guitar and singing. It started out as a thing he did for the kids in the orphanage and then gradually expanded out from that to the point where he’ll actually perform in public at times (in one card story he gets a bit drunk and decides to hop up on the stage in a bar and accidentally makes a bunch of girls think that he’s a traveling musician…), and he’s good enough at both things that it attracts the interest of Mere, a bonafide angel. Mere comments that his singing voice is very pleasant to listen to and keeps constantly badgering Oscar to accompany his own piano playing after the two of them did a performance together in the church once. Considering that Mere is over 8000 years old, he’s probably heard a whole lot of singing and music in his life and so him commenting that Oscar is talented would seem to indicate that Oscar is, in fact, quite good!

personality: To quote the scenario writer, "Oscar is a good big brother but a bad adult." His official profile states that on the battlefield, he's reliable and smart in times of emergency, which has led to other people looking up to him as an older brother figure (something he seems to like, as he refers to himself as "Big Bro" on more than one occasion). Off the battlefield, however? This man is a slacker of the highest order who will jump through hoops in order to avoid doing the nitty-gritty parts of his job like paperwork, takes naps while on the clock, and skips out on work to go day drink at the tavern.

To be fair, there's a reason behind it-- Oscar has a well of unaddressed trauma that he's trying desperately to pretend doesn't exist. His day drinking is in actuality him being a functional alcoholic in an attempt to cope with his survivor's guilt, but even he has to admit that it isn't really working, as nothing he does makes those memories go away. Which leads us to another comment from the scenario writer, which is that Oscar is in fact emotionally empty and just going through the motions of what he believes an adult should be like. The thing is? He's perfected the mask so well that absolutely no one around him can tell just how emotionally damaged he is. Cheerful and friendly and easygoing on the outside, he's the mood maker of the group and the sort of person who is the life of a party. Kids love him, he gets along even with people who are technically on the opposing side due to his high EQ, and overall he seems like pretty much the perfect guy, drinking aside.

Internally, however, he places absolutely no value on his own life and thinks he has no talents beyond his ability to protect people. Both his SSR card story and his relationship story with Claude make clear that there's a part of him that's really just waiting to die in battle or for the sake of someone else and that he's not at all disturbed by the thought-- the Sister of the orphanage (who raised him after his mother died) calls him out for his self-destructive behavior and tells him not to be so reckless with his life after he takes a knife in his back that was meant for someone else. He doesn't expect to be around for a long time, but in the meantime, he's going to do his best to protect and support other people, because in his mind, that's the only thing he's good for.

It goes without saying that this is a very unhealthy mindset! But he's fine. It's all fine, because it's not about him and never has been. He's a nothing, a no one, and his place is in the shadows rather than on the main stage. He'll play his role to the hilt until the day he finally burns out, and when he does, he'll be content as long as he was able to help someone else in the process. He's a protector by nature, and he throws everything he has into that.

Because why would anyone care what happens to him, right?

samples: One, two, and three!