Joshua Christopher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sinningsaint) wrote2014-01-19 11:27 am
sinningsaint) wrote2014-01-19 11:27 am
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TLV Application
User Name/Nick: Haley
User DW:brightblueink
AIM/IM: brightblueink (not on super often)
E-mail: HaleySings[at]gmail[dot]com
Other Characters: N/A
Character Name: Joshua Christopher
Series: Chrono Crusade (manga version)
Age: 17 (15 for most of canon)
From When?: After the main end of his canon but before the epilogue—I’m going to say it’s early 1927, and he’s been part of the Magdalan Order for about a year and a half.
Inmate/Warden: Warden!
Joshua is a troubled guy with a dark past, but it’s that troubled past that makes him so determined to help other people. Although he’s not a perfect person by any means, he’s more or less “reformed” from his past life as a villain and truly wants to help other people. Part of it is a (perhaps slightly self-centered) desire to atone for his past, but I also think his experiences have given him a large amount of empathy for others.
Heck, because of his bad past he probably could understand the inmates better than some other Wardens, because he’s been there. He’s hurt people, even (indirectly) killed people, his sister is actually dying as a consequence of his poor choices, and he even works every day to try to repair a city that was destroyed by the plans of the villain he blindly followed. Since he managed to change, he believes that most people can do it too, and he’ll be absolutely driven to prove it.
Again, he won’t be perfect—he’ll expect a lot out of others (just as he does for himself), he might project his own issues, and there will be times where he’ll get frustrated or just plain won’t know how to help. But the empathy he has for others, as well as his own past experiences, should give him what he needs to help the inmates as long as he allows himself to learn from his mistakes.
Item: An old-fashioned dime novel called THE FANTASTIC LAST VOYAGES.
Abilities/Powers: At one point in time, Joshua had abilities as an “Apostle” that allowed him to heal others, sprout angelic wings, and channel the spirits of the dead. He also got some demon horns slapped onto his head, which allowed him to “stop” the time of people and objects—basically freezing them in stone—read minds, and exhibit incredible strength.
However, he doesn’t have any of those powers anymore. The horns were forcibly removed from his head, and his Apostle powers disappeared once The Powers That Be in his world decided that there was no more need for him to have them after a major threat to his world was eliminated. Now instead of his powers, all he has is his training as a member of the Magdalan Order, and he’s otherwise a normal human.
As a member of the Order he’s likely been trained to handle firearms with special bullets designed to combat demons and other supernatural beings, as well as cross barriers made to confine them. He also has knowledge about Christian scripture, divination, supernatural beings and the like. That being said, he’s inexperienced when it comes to actually fighting supernatural beasties—most of his work in the Order is more charitable in nature, focused on feeding the hungry and helping to rebuild a damaged city.
Personality: Joshua can be a tough character to understand because in canon we see three sides to Joshua: what he was like as a child, how the power of Chrono’s horns twisted his mind and personality, and a little bit of him as a teenager without the horns (but under a very stressful, intense situation). However, when you combine the whole of canon together, you can paint a full picture of his personality. Joshua is a warm, loyal teenager who’s been battered by life and made some horrible mistakes, but he’s determined to learn from what has happened to him so that he can become a better person and make sure that his sister’s sacrifice for him was not in vain.
Despite the hardships Joshua has had in his life, he’s naturally a cheerful person. As an ill child, Joshua wanted little more than to just spend time with his sister outside and have fun with her, rather than worry over his illness or strange powers. He doesn’t particularly WANT to dwell on his problems (even though he often does), he wants to just enjoy life and have fun. So even if he's secretly upset about something, he tends to manage to make jokes, have fun discussions with the people he cares about and engage in playful banter.
Of course, sometimes that “playful banter” of his can take a snarky, argumentative, and even downright childish tone. As a kid, he mocks his older sister because her chest is “as flat as a pancake.” He gets into extended arguments with Fiore because he hates carrots and she wants him to eat healthily. He mocks and eggs on opponents in a fight. (“Hah! That wasn’t even close! You DO know how to shoot, don’t you?”) We don’t see him engage in this after he loses his horns, so it’s possible that he “grows out of” this trait later on, but it’s also just as likely that the situations we see him in afterward simply don’t call for it.
His ‘childish’ side also manifests in a more positive way, in that Joshua is very imaginative and creative. As a child trapped indoors most of the time because of his illness, he became very attached to books. Most of the stuff he read were dime novels and pulp fiction, with a particular interest in adventure, sci-fi, westerns and the occult. He loves consuming stories and is fascinated by people of different cultures and ideas, and idolizes larger-than-life heroes. He also channels this creative energy into music — he’s shown singing “Israfel” the first time we see him as a teenager, and we later learn that he focuses his powers through music.
As a child, his love of stories and of the strange and unusual is part of what drew him closer to Chrono, who he and Rosette discovered sealed away in a tomb when they were children. He was fascinated at first by Chrono’s claim of being a demon, asking him if “witches and fairies [were] real, too?” and not showing a hint of fear. When Chrono begins to tell them stories and legends he’s amazed and inspired by them, particularly Chrono explaining the “astral lines” where the souls of the dead are said to go. As a child he decided that he and Rosette were going to become explorers and find the astral lines (and he’d write a book about it, of course!). Even as a teenager, he can’t help but point out to Rosette that their dreams have come true, since when she saves him they ARE surrounded by the astral line.
In general Joshua is bold, dreams big, and enjoys taking on new challenges. His idealized version of himself is like the heroes that he’s so fascinated by. For example, when he heals Rosette with his powers and she thanks him, he tells her that she shouldn’t thank him until he saves her from a group of bandits with only a rifle.
He very, very rarely backs down from a challenge, and only seems to when ordered to or convinced otherwise. When a group of demon Pursuers come to Aion’s home and demand to see the Sinner, Joshua warns them not to underestimate him (probably just to rile them up) and then kills them all with nothing but his powers and bare hands. Later, when he starts to question whether Rosette really is his sister as she says she is, Fiore encourages him to seek out the truth — so he does, going to her directly and asking her point-blank “You really are my sister Rosette, aren’t you?” Even after he loses his horns and is back to being frail due to his Apostle powers, he not once but TWICE jumps between Rosette and an enemy, determined to protect her.
In fact, as a child he promised himself on his father’s grave that he would grow up as strong as he could to be able to protect his sister, Rosette, which is one of the reasons why he despises the illness caused by his powers so much. He’s VERY bothered that Rosette “acts just like a boy” and is the one being strong and protecting him, instead of the other way around. He seems to only half-remember the promise he made, but it greatly affects how he sees himself. In an interview in the English volume 2 of the manga, the writer of the series mentions that Joshua has a “childhood dilemma of [a] gap between the person he wants to be and the person he actually is,” which I think is a good way of summing up how Joshua feels about himself.
Because of his high expectations for himself, he HATES being pitied and patronized. As a child he knew that caring for him was tiring, and both felt guilty for being a bother and resented people pitying and coddling him because of his illness. He also gets very upset by Rosette wanting to be a doctor so she can take care of him, which is even hinted to be a motivating factor in him taking the horns. Being reminded that he was ill and weak was insulting, and later in life, when he had great power because of the horns, he went out of his way to show it off as if to prove a point.
He seems to place a high expectation on others, as well as himself, and is disappointed when they fail to match his expectations. On the flip side, when someone exceeds his expectations he’s quick to applaud them for it. For example, when Chrono snaps out of a rage-fueled frenzy during a fight and is stabbed by Aion because of it, Joshua expresses disappointment in how the fight ended, since he knows Chrono is a powerful demon. Later on, when Azmaria shows quick-thinking and uses her Apostle powers in an unconventional way to call Rosette’s soul back to her body, he’s visibly impressed with her.
His love of larger-than-life heroes, his fascination with supernatural creatures, and admiration for the powerful is probably why he was so attached to Aion when he was part of the Sinners. From Joshua’s viewpoint, Aion was always calm, collected, and in control. He was powerful, and he knew it. To a boy driven insane by the “noise” he got from the demon horns on his head, Aion must have seemed like one of the few steady, in control things in the universe. He greatly looked up to Aion, and Aion in turn expected much of him and included him in his plans. When he had the horns, Joshua was proud of his work with Aion.
Even after he lost the horns, he stops and listens when Aion speaks to him, tries to reason with Aion rather than considering him as an enemy, and even seems concerned for him after he's been shot (once he makes sure his sister is all right). Of course, he doesn’t make excuses for Aion either, and is silent when Chrono and Rosette decide to face him a final time. He doesn’t argue that they shouldn’t fight Aion. He just warns Chrono to keep Rosette safe.
Speaking of Rosette and Aion, Joshua tends to be very loyal to those that he comes to care about. In general he’s rather friendly, but has difficulties feeling like an outsider. He doesn’t seem to have had many friends in the orphanage—particularly once he got his powers, which frightened them. But the few people that he gets truly close to? He can be fanatically devoted to.
I’ve already mentioned that as a kid he promised himself he would be there for Rosette. If you asked him who the most important person in his life was, he would pick Rosette with little hesitation. She’s the only family he has left, and even though they sometimes fight or tease each other, he cares for her deeply.
After he got the horns, his memories of Rosette started to become faded and corrupted, so in his mind he constructed a false idea of his sister as some sort of perfect, beautiful maiden who never disagreed with him and was always kind (which is laughable since the real Rosette is a reckless tomboy that loves to argue, PARTICULARLY with people she cares about). He soon became absolutely obsessed with his false, idealized sister in his mind, since Rosette was so important to him that she was one of the few things he remembered even as his mind deteriorated under the influence of the horns.
However she eventually rescues him and removes the horns from his head to restore his sanity. In the rest of the manga, he shows a huge amount of gratitude to her. He’s a very devoted, doting brother without the horns, and the knowledge that her life is shortened because of his actions grieves him. Still, he’s bound and determined to protect her for as long as she lives, but on his OWN strength, now, instead of Chrono’s.
Despite how attached he is to Rosette, she’s not the only one he loves. His loyalty to Aion I covered earlier, and although the horns caused him to be selfish around her, it’s very clear that he also cares deeply for Fiore. (In fact, in a flash-forward set eight years after the main storyline, he’s STILL missing Fiore and hoping he’ll be able to see her again so he can thank her for all she did for him.)
However, despite how loving he can be to those he trusts, he has a bad habit of thinking of himself first, and others second. Rosette never asked (or even needed) to be protected by Joshua, but he was bound and determined to do it, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.
Loyal as he is to Aion, he seems to only somewhat care about Aion’s needs and ideals — as much as Aion used him, with the horns he was happy to play along for the power given to him and the promise of a new world he could share with his sister. He’ll directly disobey Aion’s orders if it’s frustrating or inconvenient for him, like when he decides to attack Chrono to make the horns stop their “screaming.”
And while I do think he cares about Fiore, he’s definitely much more interested in what she can do for HIM while he has the horns. When he was with Fiore he tended to be clingy, and centered on his own problems. He constantly goes to her for advice and emotional support without offering much in return. Part of it is just how their relationship works — she’s his maid, after all — but he definitely doesn’t mind having her around to serve him hand and foot, and even seems to actively enjoy it. (He gets a kick out of asking her if she was worried about him after a fight and even offers his cut-up hand to her so she can lick the blood from the wound. …It’s a weird moment.)
He gets much better about this behavior after he loses the horns, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a part of his personality — he’s just got a much better control over it when he’s got a better grip on his sanity. He still shows signs of being a little demanding, particularly when it comes to Chrono’s treatment of Rosette (…and her body). And particularly since this was a trait of his even before the horns, it’s likely that’s just the way he is — his guilt is just stamping out his self-centered tendencies when he’s not flying off the handle emotionally.
Oh, right, his emotions. He’s not very good at controlling them. He seems calm in comparison to Rosette, but that's more because Rosette is much better at expressing her feelings. Joshua, on the other hand, is often completely ruled by them. It’s at its worst when he has the horns, of course. He has very little impulse control with them, which is where most of his chaotic nature with the horns comes from.
But even without the horns he has a tendency to switch emotions at the drop of a hat. As a kid, while being generally cheerful, he was often depressed by his powers, and he also played a pretty mean prank on Rosette when he pretended that an object she threw knocked him cold (knowing that she fussed over his health), all as revenge for her ruining a book. (Plus, he yells at her when she offers food to Chrono because HE’D been hungry earlier—oh, yeah, there’s the selfish side again.)
Perhaps because of the trauma from the horns, even after he’s saved, he is pretty volatile emotionally. This manifests the most when he’s under a lot of stress. As things start to go worse and worse for him and Rosette at the end of the manga, he gets more and more unpredictable when it comes to his mood swings. He’s not a stoic guy by any stretch of the imagination.
Chrono seems the most likely character to set him off throughout canon. When he has the horns, it’s partially because he thinks of Chrono as an enemy (for wanting to take the horns from him) and partially because when he’s around Chrono the horns respond to him and make the noise even worse. When he first saw Chrono again after joining Aion, he shot him because of this, and came very, very close to killing him.
Once the horns are gone, things still aren’t great between him and Chrono, mostly because of how devoted and protective he is of his sister. When he finds out about the contract Chrono had with Rosette, he flies into a rage and beats Chrono until his knuckles are bloodied (despite the fact that Chrono was already gravely injured).
Aion comes around eventually to point out that Rosette made the contract to save Joshua, but even then that doesn’t quite calm him down about it. He yells at Chrono when Chrono’s about to leave Rosette(‘s body) behind, and when Rosette and Chrono decide they have to face Aion together, Joshua gives Chrono a veeeeeery reluctant blessing. It’s not that he hates Chrono — far from it, without the horns he even seems to think of Chrono as a friend and expresses concern for him at one point. It’s just that when emotions are running high, it’s easy for him to pick a target to lash out at — plus, he’s the stereotypical overprotective brother. He’s glad that Rosette cares about Chrono, but he’s going to make VERY SURE that Chrono takes good care of her.
But really, despite all of his hang-ups, chaotic emotions and selfishness? By the end of the manga, Joshua is determined to become a better person. We might not get to see much of him without the horns, but barring his outbursts over Chrono’s contract with Rosette, every single thing he does after he loses the horns is directed at helping other people.
When it’s revealed that there’s a chance to save Rosette’s life, he immediately offers to help, even though to do so he has to use his Apostle powers, which causes him to become ill again (to the point where he starts to cough up blood). Despite his tense moments with Chrono, he doesn’t let him go without apologizing for his harsh behavior toward him. The last thing we see him do in the main manga timeline is comfort Azmaria when she begins to cry. And in the epilogue, we learn that he eventually joins the Order to atone for the harm he’s caused.
This isn’t actually all that surprising. Although he can be selfish, as a child we’re never given any reason to think he ever refused to heal someone with his powers, despite resenting his ill health and despite his powers and illness making him an outcast in his orphanage. In fact, considering that his powers are what causes his illness in the first place? It’s pretty clear that he’s been using his powers a lot, since he’s become very ill by the time he takes the horns.
So in conclusion? Joshua is a screwed-up kid that can be self-centered and argumentative, clingy and prone to mood swings. He’s also compassionate, a devoted brother, curious and creative, and by the end of the manga is on his way to becoming someone who lives his life to help others.
Barge Reactions: Joshua is really fascinated by cultures and creatures that are unlike him, so initially he’ll probably be pretty excited. Look at all these people with different powers! Maybe he’ll finally meet a FAIRY! Oooh, now he finally has a chance to be an explorer, and an explorer of other universes no less!!
(Let’s be honest, he would mostly accept being a Warden because he can make a deal to help his sister and he wants to help others, but there’s probably a little part of him that signed up just because OMG A BOAT THAT GOES TO DIFFERENT WORLDS THAT’S THE BEE’S KNEES.)
Of course, that somewhat obnoxious enthusiasm might die down once he meets a few too many dangerous people or gets caught up in some frightening experiences during a flood or at a port. Then he’ll probably be a little bit more cautious and guarded…but still very curious.
History: Here’s Wikipedia’s article, but in general it’s better for setting information than Joshua’s history, specifically. (Particularly since it tends to reference the anime a bit more than the manga, and they’re pretty different.) I’m just gonna…try to summarize this as clearly as I can.
Joshua was originally a bright, creative boy living in an orphanage. As he grew up, he developed ‘holy’ powers that marked him as an Apostle — one of seven children with the ability to channel the astral line, a river of souls that ran through the sky.
Although Joshua’s powers allowed him to heal others, they also caused an illness that he couldn’t cure with his powers. Bitter at how weak his powers made him, when a demon named Aion offered him a demon horns that would make him strong, he jumped at the chance. The horns did indeed make him strong, but also drove him mad because of the way they allowed him to read the minds of others, and also opened his mind up to Pandaemonium, the queen of the demons. In his insanity he “stopped the time” of all the occupants of his orphanage—besides Rosette, his sister, who managed to escape—effectively freezing them in stone.
Aion then recruited Joshua as one of the Sinners, his group of rebels against the demon world. Aion gave to Joshua a girl named Fiore as a maid, who helped him to raise Joshua and attempted to keep his insanity under control. As he grew, he became only more powerful, but also began to lose more and more of his mind and sense of self. His mix of reckless, violent behavior caused by his insanity and the demon powers granted by his horns mixed with his Apostle powers caused him to be a terrifying foe — whether he was fighting other demons that were gathering against Aion, or even his own sister and her demon partner Chrono, who had joined a religious organization called the Magdalan Order in an attempt to save him from Aion.
Four years after Joshua was taken away from his home, Aion managed to gather together all seven of the Apostles, and used their powers in his rebellion against demon society in an attempt to remake the world to “fix” what he perceived to be a broken system. Although Rosette was too late to stop Joshua from helping Aion with his powers, she did eventually catch up to him and shot off one of the demon horns. This finally made him lucid enough to realize how much damage he’d been causing with the horns, and he chose to rip out the other horn himself, restoring his mind and unfreezing the orphanage that he’d trapped in time years ago.
Together Joshua, the Apostles, Rosette and her companions were able to stop Aion’s plans to destroy and remake the world, but Aion, Fiore and Chrono disappeared in the process — their fates are currently unknown. Joshua returned to the Magdalan Order with his sister and later joined them as an act of atonement, working with the Order to help the people affected by Aion’s plans. However, Joshua’s redemption had come at a terrible cost — Rosette had made a contract with Chrono to sacrifice her soul so that he could help her save Joshua, and she began to show the same signs of illness that Joshua had as a child, which he knows is a sign that her life has been shortened and is beginning to come to an end…
Sample Journal Entry: [On the screen is a video of a boy in his teens dressed up as some sort of clergy member in a dark blue uniform, complete with a skullcap struggling to contain his wild blond hair. He sits straight and stiff in his chair, and begins to give a far too rehearsed message.]
Greetings. My name is Brother Joshua Christopher. Back home, I’m a member of the Magdalan Order, and I’ve been chosen as one of the Wardens here on the Barge. I promise that I’ll do my best to help others…and…
[He trails off with a frown and leans closer to the camera, apparently messing with some controls.]
Damn it, is this thing not recording again? How many times am I going to have to recite this stupid speech?
[The change in demeanor is as sharp contrast to the formerly well-controlled, religious teen as he slumps a pout, glaring at the screen.]
Shader would probably make fun of me if she saw me now. I can’t even remember how to make a communicator work anymore…
[He clicks his tongue.]
Practice makes perfect, I guess. Maybe this time I’ll try to be a little more earnest. I could talk about my training, maybe? Yeah. I’ll do that.
Okay, so the button to start recording is…here.
[He reaches out…and the recording ends.]
Sample RP: Joshua Christopher had sworn that he wouldn’t leave his sister alone again, after everything she had done to get him back. He wouldn’t have left her side without a damn good reason. However, in this particular case, he had one.
It was a strangely unclear memory for something that happened recently, almost to the point that it felt like another dream. There was a man — his face creepily blank in his memory — who offered him a chance at a new job. Joshua was devoted enough to his work at the Order that he almost immediately turned him down, until the man mentioned that in exchange for this particular job, he would be allowed anything in return--even things that seemed impossible.
He was suspicious, at first. He’d heard his fair share of too-good-to-be-true promises in the past, and the last time he accepted a deal like that, he’d wasted years of his life chasing after a madman’s dream of “fixing” the world through its destruction. But at the same time, as soon as the possibility was introduced in his head he immediately came up with an appropriate award for his work. If ANYTHING was truly possible through this deal, then maybe he could finally atone for that childish mistake. Maybe he could wind back up the clock that was all too close to stopping.
So he’d looked the man straight in the eye and asked, “Anything? Even making someone live longer than they’re supposed to?”
He couldn’t remember for sure now, but he thought the man might have smiled.
And now Joshua found himself on a boat, surrounded by strangers, including people he was supposed to help redeem somehow. He felt lost in the crowd and unsure of where to start. Being a warden was the sort of job that someone like Father Remington would be better at—or maybe even his sister—but if that was what he needed to do to help Rosette, he would do it.
It wasn’t as though he was a stranger to redemption, and maybe his credentials as a member of the Order would help him gain their trust…if any of the inmates were religious, anyway. He made a silent wish that maybe one of the inmates MIGHT be religious and he MIGHT be able to pull the “saintly clergy member” act off well enough to make them confide in him, and then set about to try to talk to a few people that were milling about in the less busy areas of the boat.
Special Notes: I'm going to useunapostled for posting and sinningsaint for commenting and OOC posts!
User DW:
brightblueinkAIM/IM: brightblueink (not on super often)
E-mail: HaleySings[at]gmail[dot]com
Other Characters: N/A
Character Name: Joshua Christopher
Series: Chrono Crusade (manga version)
Age: 17 (15 for most of canon)
From When?: After the main end of his canon but before the epilogue—I’m going to say it’s early 1927, and he’s been part of the Magdalan Order for about a year and a half.
Inmate/Warden: Warden!
Joshua is a troubled guy with a dark past, but it’s that troubled past that makes him so determined to help other people. Although he’s not a perfect person by any means, he’s more or less “reformed” from his past life as a villain and truly wants to help other people. Part of it is a (perhaps slightly self-centered) desire to atone for his past, but I also think his experiences have given him a large amount of empathy for others.
Heck, because of his bad past he probably could understand the inmates better than some other Wardens, because he’s been there. He’s hurt people, even (indirectly) killed people, his sister is actually dying as a consequence of his poor choices, and he even works every day to try to repair a city that was destroyed by the plans of the villain he blindly followed. Since he managed to change, he believes that most people can do it too, and he’ll be absolutely driven to prove it.
Again, he won’t be perfect—he’ll expect a lot out of others (just as he does for himself), he might project his own issues, and there will be times where he’ll get frustrated or just plain won’t know how to help. But the empathy he has for others, as well as his own past experiences, should give him what he needs to help the inmates as long as he allows himself to learn from his mistakes.
Item: An old-fashioned dime novel called THE FANTASTIC LAST VOYAGES.
Abilities/Powers: At one point in time, Joshua had abilities as an “Apostle” that allowed him to heal others, sprout angelic wings, and channel the spirits of the dead. He also got some demon horns slapped onto his head, which allowed him to “stop” the time of people and objects—basically freezing them in stone—read minds, and exhibit incredible strength.
However, he doesn’t have any of those powers anymore. The horns were forcibly removed from his head, and his Apostle powers disappeared once The Powers That Be in his world decided that there was no more need for him to have them after a major threat to his world was eliminated. Now instead of his powers, all he has is his training as a member of the Magdalan Order, and he’s otherwise a normal human.
As a member of the Order he’s likely been trained to handle firearms with special bullets designed to combat demons and other supernatural beings, as well as cross barriers made to confine them. He also has knowledge about Christian scripture, divination, supernatural beings and the like. That being said, he’s inexperienced when it comes to actually fighting supernatural beasties—most of his work in the Order is more charitable in nature, focused on feeding the hungry and helping to rebuild a damaged city.
Personality: Joshua can be a tough character to understand because in canon we see three sides to Joshua: what he was like as a child, how the power of Chrono’s horns twisted his mind and personality, and a little bit of him as a teenager without the horns (but under a very stressful, intense situation). However, when you combine the whole of canon together, you can paint a full picture of his personality. Joshua is a warm, loyal teenager who’s been battered by life and made some horrible mistakes, but he’s determined to learn from what has happened to him so that he can become a better person and make sure that his sister’s sacrifice for him was not in vain.
Despite the hardships Joshua has had in his life, he’s naturally a cheerful person. As an ill child, Joshua wanted little more than to just spend time with his sister outside and have fun with her, rather than worry over his illness or strange powers. He doesn’t particularly WANT to dwell on his problems (even though he often does), he wants to just enjoy life and have fun. So even if he's secretly upset about something, he tends to manage to make jokes, have fun discussions with the people he cares about and engage in playful banter.
Of course, sometimes that “playful banter” of his can take a snarky, argumentative, and even downright childish tone. As a kid, he mocks his older sister because her chest is “as flat as a pancake.” He gets into extended arguments with Fiore because he hates carrots and she wants him to eat healthily. He mocks and eggs on opponents in a fight. (“Hah! That wasn’t even close! You DO know how to shoot, don’t you?”) We don’t see him engage in this after he loses his horns, so it’s possible that he “grows out of” this trait later on, but it’s also just as likely that the situations we see him in afterward simply don’t call for it.
His ‘childish’ side also manifests in a more positive way, in that Joshua is very imaginative and creative. As a child trapped indoors most of the time because of his illness, he became very attached to books. Most of the stuff he read were dime novels and pulp fiction, with a particular interest in adventure, sci-fi, westerns and the occult. He loves consuming stories and is fascinated by people of different cultures and ideas, and idolizes larger-than-life heroes. He also channels this creative energy into music — he’s shown singing “Israfel” the first time we see him as a teenager, and we later learn that he focuses his powers through music.
As a child, his love of stories and of the strange and unusual is part of what drew him closer to Chrono, who he and Rosette discovered sealed away in a tomb when they were children. He was fascinated at first by Chrono’s claim of being a demon, asking him if “witches and fairies [were] real, too?” and not showing a hint of fear. When Chrono begins to tell them stories and legends he’s amazed and inspired by them, particularly Chrono explaining the “astral lines” where the souls of the dead are said to go. As a child he decided that he and Rosette were going to become explorers and find the astral lines (and he’d write a book about it, of course!). Even as a teenager, he can’t help but point out to Rosette that their dreams have come true, since when she saves him they ARE surrounded by the astral line.
In general Joshua is bold, dreams big, and enjoys taking on new challenges. His idealized version of himself is like the heroes that he’s so fascinated by. For example, when he heals Rosette with his powers and she thanks him, he tells her that she shouldn’t thank him until he saves her from a group of bandits with only a rifle.
He very, very rarely backs down from a challenge, and only seems to when ordered to or convinced otherwise. When a group of demon Pursuers come to Aion’s home and demand to see the Sinner, Joshua warns them not to underestimate him (probably just to rile them up) and then kills them all with nothing but his powers and bare hands. Later, when he starts to question whether Rosette really is his sister as she says she is, Fiore encourages him to seek out the truth — so he does, going to her directly and asking her point-blank “You really are my sister Rosette, aren’t you?” Even after he loses his horns and is back to being frail due to his Apostle powers, he not once but TWICE jumps between Rosette and an enemy, determined to protect her.
In fact, as a child he promised himself on his father’s grave that he would grow up as strong as he could to be able to protect his sister, Rosette, which is one of the reasons why he despises the illness caused by his powers so much. He’s VERY bothered that Rosette “acts just like a boy” and is the one being strong and protecting him, instead of the other way around. He seems to only half-remember the promise he made, but it greatly affects how he sees himself. In an interview in the English volume 2 of the manga, the writer of the series mentions that Joshua has a “childhood dilemma of [a] gap between the person he wants to be and the person he actually is,” which I think is a good way of summing up how Joshua feels about himself.
Because of his high expectations for himself, he HATES being pitied and patronized. As a child he knew that caring for him was tiring, and both felt guilty for being a bother and resented people pitying and coddling him because of his illness. He also gets very upset by Rosette wanting to be a doctor so she can take care of him, which is even hinted to be a motivating factor in him taking the horns. Being reminded that he was ill and weak was insulting, and later in life, when he had great power because of the horns, he went out of his way to show it off as if to prove a point.
He seems to place a high expectation on others, as well as himself, and is disappointed when they fail to match his expectations. On the flip side, when someone exceeds his expectations he’s quick to applaud them for it. For example, when Chrono snaps out of a rage-fueled frenzy during a fight and is stabbed by Aion because of it, Joshua expresses disappointment in how the fight ended, since he knows Chrono is a powerful demon. Later on, when Azmaria shows quick-thinking and uses her Apostle powers in an unconventional way to call Rosette’s soul back to her body, he’s visibly impressed with her.
His love of larger-than-life heroes, his fascination with supernatural creatures, and admiration for the powerful is probably why he was so attached to Aion when he was part of the Sinners. From Joshua’s viewpoint, Aion was always calm, collected, and in control. He was powerful, and he knew it. To a boy driven insane by the “noise” he got from the demon horns on his head, Aion must have seemed like one of the few steady, in control things in the universe. He greatly looked up to Aion, and Aion in turn expected much of him and included him in his plans. When he had the horns, Joshua was proud of his work with Aion.
Even after he lost the horns, he stops and listens when Aion speaks to him, tries to reason with Aion rather than considering him as an enemy, and even seems concerned for him after he's been shot (once he makes sure his sister is all right). Of course, he doesn’t make excuses for Aion either, and is silent when Chrono and Rosette decide to face him a final time. He doesn’t argue that they shouldn’t fight Aion. He just warns Chrono to keep Rosette safe.
Speaking of Rosette and Aion, Joshua tends to be very loyal to those that he comes to care about. In general he’s rather friendly, but has difficulties feeling like an outsider. He doesn’t seem to have had many friends in the orphanage—particularly once he got his powers, which frightened them. But the few people that he gets truly close to? He can be fanatically devoted to.
I’ve already mentioned that as a kid he promised himself he would be there for Rosette. If you asked him who the most important person in his life was, he would pick Rosette with little hesitation. She’s the only family he has left, and even though they sometimes fight or tease each other, he cares for her deeply.
After he got the horns, his memories of Rosette started to become faded and corrupted, so in his mind he constructed a false idea of his sister as some sort of perfect, beautiful maiden who never disagreed with him and was always kind (which is laughable since the real Rosette is a reckless tomboy that loves to argue, PARTICULARLY with people she cares about). He soon became absolutely obsessed with his false, idealized sister in his mind, since Rosette was so important to him that she was one of the few things he remembered even as his mind deteriorated under the influence of the horns.
However she eventually rescues him and removes the horns from his head to restore his sanity. In the rest of the manga, he shows a huge amount of gratitude to her. He’s a very devoted, doting brother without the horns, and the knowledge that her life is shortened because of his actions grieves him. Still, he’s bound and determined to protect her for as long as she lives, but on his OWN strength, now, instead of Chrono’s.
Despite how attached he is to Rosette, she’s not the only one he loves. His loyalty to Aion I covered earlier, and although the horns caused him to be selfish around her, it’s very clear that he also cares deeply for Fiore. (In fact, in a flash-forward set eight years after the main storyline, he’s STILL missing Fiore and hoping he’ll be able to see her again so he can thank her for all she did for him.)
However, despite how loving he can be to those he trusts, he has a bad habit of thinking of himself first, and others second. Rosette never asked (or even needed) to be protected by Joshua, but he was bound and determined to do it, even if it meant making a deal with the devil.
Loyal as he is to Aion, he seems to only somewhat care about Aion’s needs and ideals — as much as Aion used him, with the horns he was happy to play along for the power given to him and the promise of a new world he could share with his sister. He’ll directly disobey Aion’s orders if it’s frustrating or inconvenient for him, like when he decides to attack Chrono to make the horns stop their “screaming.”
And while I do think he cares about Fiore, he’s definitely much more interested in what she can do for HIM while he has the horns. When he was with Fiore he tended to be clingy, and centered on his own problems. He constantly goes to her for advice and emotional support without offering much in return. Part of it is just how their relationship works — she’s his maid, after all — but he definitely doesn’t mind having her around to serve him hand and foot, and even seems to actively enjoy it. (He gets a kick out of asking her if she was worried about him after a fight and even offers his cut-up hand to her so she can lick the blood from the wound. …It’s a weird moment.)
He gets much better about this behavior after he loses the horns, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a part of his personality — he’s just got a much better control over it when he’s got a better grip on his sanity. He still shows signs of being a little demanding, particularly when it comes to Chrono’s treatment of Rosette (…and her body). And particularly since this was a trait of his even before the horns, it’s likely that’s just the way he is — his guilt is just stamping out his self-centered tendencies when he’s not flying off the handle emotionally.
Oh, right, his emotions. He’s not very good at controlling them. He seems calm in comparison to Rosette, but that's more because Rosette is much better at expressing her feelings. Joshua, on the other hand, is often completely ruled by them. It’s at its worst when he has the horns, of course. He has very little impulse control with them, which is where most of his chaotic nature with the horns comes from.
But even without the horns he has a tendency to switch emotions at the drop of a hat. As a kid, while being generally cheerful, he was often depressed by his powers, and he also played a pretty mean prank on Rosette when he pretended that an object she threw knocked him cold (knowing that she fussed over his health), all as revenge for her ruining a book. (Plus, he yells at her when she offers food to Chrono because HE’D been hungry earlier—oh, yeah, there’s the selfish side again.)
Perhaps because of the trauma from the horns, even after he’s saved, he is pretty volatile emotionally. This manifests the most when he’s under a lot of stress. As things start to go worse and worse for him and Rosette at the end of the manga, he gets more and more unpredictable when it comes to his mood swings. He’s not a stoic guy by any stretch of the imagination.
Chrono seems the most likely character to set him off throughout canon. When he has the horns, it’s partially because he thinks of Chrono as an enemy (for wanting to take the horns from him) and partially because when he’s around Chrono the horns respond to him and make the noise even worse. When he first saw Chrono again after joining Aion, he shot him because of this, and came very, very close to killing him.
Once the horns are gone, things still aren’t great between him and Chrono, mostly because of how devoted and protective he is of his sister. When he finds out about the contract Chrono had with Rosette, he flies into a rage and beats Chrono until his knuckles are bloodied (despite the fact that Chrono was already gravely injured).
Aion comes around eventually to point out that Rosette made the contract to save Joshua, but even then that doesn’t quite calm him down about it. He yells at Chrono when Chrono’s about to leave Rosette(‘s body) behind, and when Rosette and Chrono decide they have to face Aion together, Joshua gives Chrono a veeeeeery reluctant blessing. It’s not that he hates Chrono — far from it, without the horns he even seems to think of Chrono as a friend and expresses concern for him at one point. It’s just that when emotions are running high, it’s easy for him to pick a target to lash out at — plus, he’s the stereotypical overprotective brother. He’s glad that Rosette cares about Chrono, but he’s going to make VERY SURE that Chrono takes good care of her.
But really, despite all of his hang-ups, chaotic emotions and selfishness? By the end of the manga, Joshua is determined to become a better person. We might not get to see much of him without the horns, but barring his outbursts over Chrono’s contract with Rosette, every single thing he does after he loses the horns is directed at helping other people.
When it’s revealed that there’s a chance to save Rosette’s life, he immediately offers to help, even though to do so he has to use his Apostle powers, which causes him to become ill again (to the point where he starts to cough up blood). Despite his tense moments with Chrono, he doesn’t let him go without apologizing for his harsh behavior toward him. The last thing we see him do in the main manga timeline is comfort Azmaria when she begins to cry. And in the epilogue, we learn that he eventually joins the Order to atone for the harm he’s caused.
This isn’t actually all that surprising. Although he can be selfish, as a child we’re never given any reason to think he ever refused to heal someone with his powers, despite resenting his ill health and despite his powers and illness making him an outcast in his orphanage. In fact, considering that his powers are what causes his illness in the first place? It’s pretty clear that he’s been using his powers a lot, since he’s become very ill by the time he takes the horns.
So in conclusion? Joshua is a screwed-up kid that can be self-centered and argumentative, clingy and prone to mood swings. He’s also compassionate, a devoted brother, curious and creative, and by the end of the manga is on his way to becoming someone who lives his life to help others.
Barge Reactions: Joshua is really fascinated by cultures and creatures that are unlike him, so initially he’ll probably be pretty excited. Look at all these people with different powers! Maybe he’ll finally meet a FAIRY! Oooh, now he finally has a chance to be an explorer, and an explorer of other universes no less!!
(Let’s be honest, he would mostly accept being a Warden because he can make a deal to help his sister and he wants to help others, but there’s probably a little part of him that signed up just because OMG A BOAT THAT GOES TO DIFFERENT WORLDS THAT’S THE BEE’S KNEES.)
Of course, that somewhat obnoxious enthusiasm might die down once he meets a few too many dangerous people or gets caught up in some frightening experiences during a flood or at a port. Then he’ll probably be a little bit more cautious and guarded…but still very curious.
History: Here’s Wikipedia’s article, but in general it’s better for setting information than Joshua’s history, specifically. (Particularly since it tends to reference the anime a bit more than the manga, and they’re pretty different.) I’m just gonna…try to summarize this as clearly as I can.
Joshua was originally a bright, creative boy living in an orphanage. As he grew up, he developed ‘holy’ powers that marked him as an Apostle — one of seven children with the ability to channel the astral line, a river of souls that ran through the sky.
Although Joshua’s powers allowed him to heal others, they also caused an illness that he couldn’t cure with his powers. Bitter at how weak his powers made him, when a demon named Aion offered him a demon horns that would make him strong, he jumped at the chance. The horns did indeed make him strong, but also drove him mad because of the way they allowed him to read the minds of others, and also opened his mind up to Pandaemonium, the queen of the demons. In his insanity he “stopped the time” of all the occupants of his orphanage—besides Rosette, his sister, who managed to escape—effectively freezing them in stone.
Aion then recruited Joshua as one of the Sinners, his group of rebels against the demon world. Aion gave to Joshua a girl named Fiore as a maid, who helped him to raise Joshua and attempted to keep his insanity under control. As he grew, he became only more powerful, but also began to lose more and more of his mind and sense of self. His mix of reckless, violent behavior caused by his insanity and the demon powers granted by his horns mixed with his Apostle powers caused him to be a terrifying foe — whether he was fighting other demons that were gathering against Aion, or even his own sister and her demon partner Chrono, who had joined a religious organization called the Magdalan Order in an attempt to save him from Aion.
Four years after Joshua was taken away from his home, Aion managed to gather together all seven of the Apostles, and used their powers in his rebellion against demon society in an attempt to remake the world to “fix” what he perceived to be a broken system. Although Rosette was too late to stop Joshua from helping Aion with his powers, she did eventually catch up to him and shot off one of the demon horns. This finally made him lucid enough to realize how much damage he’d been causing with the horns, and he chose to rip out the other horn himself, restoring his mind and unfreezing the orphanage that he’d trapped in time years ago.
Together Joshua, the Apostles, Rosette and her companions were able to stop Aion’s plans to destroy and remake the world, but Aion, Fiore and Chrono disappeared in the process — their fates are currently unknown. Joshua returned to the Magdalan Order with his sister and later joined them as an act of atonement, working with the Order to help the people affected by Aion’s plans. However, Joshua’s redemption had come at a terrible cost — Rosette had made a contract with Chrono to sacrifice her soul so that he could help her save Joshua, and she began to show the same signs of illness that Joshua had as a child, which he knows is a sign that her life has been shortened and is beginning to come to an end…
Sample Journal Entry: [On the screen is a video of a boy in his teens dressed up as some sort of clergy member in a dark blue uniform, complete with a skullcap struggling to contain his wild blond hair. He sits straight and stiff in his chair, and begins to give a far too rehearsed message.]
Greetings. My name is Brother Joshua Christopher. Back home, I’m a member of the Magdalan Order, and I’ve been chosen as one of the Wardens here on the Barge. I promise that I’ll do my best to help others…and…
[He trails off with a frown and leans closer to the camera, apparently messing with some controls.]
Damn it, is this thing not recording again? How many times am I going to have to recite this stupid speech?
[The change in demeanor is as sharp contrast to the formerly well-controlled, religious teen as he slumps a pout, glaring at the screen.]
Shader would probably make fun of me if she saw me now. I can’t even remember how to make a communicator work anymore…
[He clicks his tongue.]
Practice makes perfect, I guess. Maybe this time I’ll try to be a little more earnest. I could talk about my training, maybe? Yeah. I’ll do that.
Okay, so the button to start recording is…here.
[He reaches out…and the recording ends.]
Sample RP: Joshua Christopher had sworn that he wouldn’t leave his sister alone again, after everything she had done to get him back. He wouldn’t have left her side without a damn good reason. However, in this particular case, he had one.
It was a strangely unclear memory for something that happened recently, almost to the point that it felt like another dream. There was a man — his face creepily blank in his memory — who offered him a chance at a new job. Joshua was devoted enough to his work at the Order that he almost immediately turned him down, until the man mentioned that in exchange for this particular job, he would be allowed anything in return--even things that seemed impossible.
He was suspicious, at first. He’d heard his fair share of too-good-to-be-true promises in the past, and the last time he accepted a deal like that, he’d wasted years of his life chasing after a madman’s dream of “fixing” the world through its destruction. But at the same time, as soon as the possibility was introduced in his head he immediately came up with an appropriate award for his work. If ANYTHING was truly possible through this deal, then maybe he could finally atone for that childish mistake. Maybe he could wind back up the clock that was all too close to stopping.
So he’d looked the man straight in the eye and asked, “Anything? Even making someone live longer than they’re supposed to?”
He couldn’t remember for sure now, but he thought the man might have smiled.
And now Joshua found himself on a boat, surrounded by strangers, including people he was supposed to help redeem somehow. He felt lost in the crowd and unsure of where to start. Being a warden was the sort of job that someone like Father Remington would be better at—or maybe even his sister—but if that was what he needed to do to help Rosette, he would do it.
It wasn’t as though he was a stranger to redemption, and maybe his credentials as a member of the Order would help him gain their trust…if any of the inmates were religious, anyway. He made a silent wish that maybe one of the inmates MIGHT be religious and he MIGHT be able to pull the “saintly clergy member” act off well enough to make them confide in him, and then set about to try to talk to a few people that were milling about in the less busy areas of the boat.
Special Notes: I'm going to use
unapostled for posting and sinningsaint for commenting and OOC posts!