haji > edward cullen

Name: Saya
Door: door pass/sub

Canon: Blood+ (will be using anime, light novel series, and "Blood+ Adagio" manga)
Canon Point: post-Adagio

Age: appears ~16-ish, is actually just over ~80
Appearance: link

History: link
Personality:

» » » compassionate(+)
- Saya’s compassion is chiefly a result of her closeness to humans throughout her life.
- Although she herself is not human, owing entirely to chance she experienced a loving, somewhat spoiled upbringing as the daughter of the man who first discovered her (Joel). While in reality Saya was almost certainly an “experiment” to Joel, his kind treatment of her was enough for her to think of him as her “father”.
- Joel’s later death at her younger sister Diva's hands starts a pattern that we see happen over and over again for Saya, through the many generations she is alive: she forms special bonds with humans, becomes saddened by their deaths (usually caused by Diva or her followers), and desires to do whatever she can to prevent further unnecessary pain and death.
- As stated in the anime, her goal is to create a world where no one else has to get hurt.
- Saya is, at her core, a soft individual. She dislikes violent fighting, although ironically she is the only true weapon humanity has to combat the Chiropterans. Witnessing her fully transformed Chevalier Haji decimate a group of men fills her with enough fear that he conceals most of his Chiropteran attributes from then on. She is initially reluctant to cooperate with the Red Shield, and during the events in Adagio, murdering humans-turned-Chiropterans literally reduces her to tears.
- Even if she's experienced so much pain, Saya is still optimistic, friendly, and hopeful. She longs for companionship and peace, due in no small part to her feelings of isolation as a true Chiropteran Queen (progenitor) among humans. Saya wants to feel like she belongs, like she's accepted—because why she is what she is remains a mystery to her, too.
- Throughout the series, she regularly makes easy friendships with others, including young women who appear to be around her age.
- It's also the case that if someone is kind and accepting towards Saya, she tends to trust them back with time. This is shown with everyone from Haji to eventually her most recent adoptive family—George, Kai, and Riku.
- Saya can come to sympathize with her supposed enemies. It all depends on how these individuals act and what their underlying purposes are. A good example is her developing friendships with the Schiff—manmade Chiropterans who were attacking Saya for her blood. Once Saya discovers they need her help to survive a fatal disease, it doesn't take long for her to give her blood freely. Later, the last existing Schiff Lulu becomes friendly with Saya to the point of sharing TV time with her.
- Saya possesses compassion for what her twin sister Diva and some of her Chevaliers have went through, too. Mostly this illustrates that her psyche is not as impervious as she'd like to pretend it is. Karl is misunderstood. Solomon professes that he loves her and she rejects him gently, but appreciates his efforts on her behalf. Saya is nearly heartbroken when Diva dies before her, just as puzzled as her sister is that they aren't dying together and screaming for her to "Take me with you!" She acknowledges her sister's horrendous treatment by Joel and her wish to have a family. In fact, she calls Diva "my other self".

» » » black-and-white thinking(-)
- Saya's ultimate mission for the entirety of the series is killing her younger sister, Diva.
- Later, she decides that she will die after taking Diva's life. She forces Haji, her constant follower and Chevalier, to promise that he will kill her with his own hands after the final battle.
- Saya is motivated by a belief that her race, the Chiropterans, are "bad" and therefore deserve to be annihilated completely. This was instigated by her stark differences with humans that the loved ones around her couldn't help but notice—for example never aging, healing instantaneously, and drinking blood. Diva and her group's later murder of countless humans, including people desperately important to Saya (like Joel), deeply ingrained it.
- This type of rigid thinking obviously prevents Saya from facing the understandable reasons for some of her foes' actions. To use Diva as just one example, focusing on killing her because she's "bad" helps ignore Joel's inhuman treatment of Diva from birth and the possibility that Diva's Chevalier Amshel is manipulating her for his own ends.
- In a way, looking at everything in an "all-or-nothing" manner works for Saya like a coping mechanism. With the constant pain, death, and terror that she's forced to deal with on a regular basis, as well as the stress of carrying the well-being of humanity on her shoulders, it's natural that she would need a way to make herself function. Cutting down on the details and focusing on broad rules—kill Diva, Chiropterans shouldn't exist—help her take any action to attain her goal of a peaceful world.
- The reverse of Saya's belief that "all Chiropterans are bad"—all humans deserve to live—also holds true. We see early on in Red Shield's history that David tells Saya killing Chiropterans is fine, as if their lives don't have the same worth as human ones. (The irony of this is that Red Shield depends on two Chiropterans, Saya and Haji, to succeed.) Saya never intentionally sets out to murder a human being, and she is consumed by grief when she kills people who had not transformed into Chiropteran monsters. While humans certainly manipulate the Chiropterans for their own gain, she doesn't give this as much weight as the misdeeds of Diva and her Chevaliers.
- Actually, she believes that if the Chiropterans were eliminated, humans would have no reason to destroy themselves over them. It's twisted if you consider that both humans and Chiropterans are species native to Earth who have an equal right to live.
- Saya's inflexibility is present in other ways, too. Rather than a character like Kai, she usually assumes people are set in their beliefs and, for example, that if they attack her once they will always be her enemies. That sometimes makes sense because her sense of self-preservation must be high to compete with Diva and Saya repeatedly suffers when her enemies exploit her lenience. But it can also be ridiculous; if talking can solve an issue instead of fighting, it's better to do that.
- Saya's tendency for this trait is a direct result of her experience. People who are more open-minded but still reasonable—like Kai, Lulu, Mao, and Haji—can persuade her to be less set in her ways. With enough explanation and support, she relents. The reverse is also true; in times of grief and overwhelming negative emotion, she shuts down and commits to the very basic beliefs she needs to keep functioning.

» » » depressed(-)
- Saya's suffering goes hand-in-hand with what she has experienced throughout her life.
- While at the beginning she was a spoiled, rich young woman who had almost her every need met, Saya's picturesque life quickly turns dismal once her younger sister murders her adoptive "father" Joel and massacres his birthday party.
- Suddenly she has to deal with Diva—her sister, a force who seems dedicated to hurting others—and her own intense self-guilt. Diva would never have been able to escape if Saya hadn't released her from her tower in the first place. Saya has no one to blame but herself for the greatest threat facing humanity. She is aware of that.
- At her core, Saya dislikes unnecessary and violent fighting—basically anything that puts people in pain. She abandons her carelessness quickly, but it can also be said she feels some emotions too deeply or takes on more of a burden than she is due.
- It is because she tends to linger in her negative emotions that Haji defines her as almost a different person after she turned him into a Chevalier—whereas before she was lighthearted and happy, now she's morose and depressed.
- Saya acts in self-harm in Adagio out of her grief, stabbing herself in her own hand with her sword. Making a promise with Haji to die shortly after she kills Diva—in effect planning for her own death—is also something she wouldn't be compelled to do unless she was quite depressed already.
- Some of Saya's more explosive behaviors earlier on in her life can be addressed to underlying depression. In Adagio, she shouts at Haji, is pouty and distressed, and takes her failings, along with her successes, personally. Granted, that's not hard to do when her "success" is murdering a bunch of people-turned-Chiropterans.
- Saya possesses a healthy dose of self-hatred. During the later part of Adagio in particular, she almost seems to hate her own blood more than the man who forcibly ingested it, once it makes him burst into a gory mess.
- It's definitely shown that Saya struggles with the contradictions present in her own being and what she does. She seeks family, but is determined to kill her only true sibling; she sees Chiropterans as bad while she herself is one; she reluctantly begins working with the Red Shield while wanting to return to her old life. The fact that her identity is itself something unforgivable for her leads to despair for Saya.
- She doesn't do especially well with processing violence, death, and the kind of graphic horror that Chiropterans tend to cause on the loose—arguably, no one really would. Saya's lot in life is to face traumatic events repeatedly, often with no prior warning; she awakens from her 30-year-long hiberation that occurs every 2-3 years to face the same trauma continually. The hardened, battle-focused side of her that we see is more forced out of necessity rather than natural to her.
- Saya frequently lingers on her regrets and apologizes to Haji for making him her Chevalier, although this was done accidentally.
- Saya refuses to ingest blood from methods other than receiving infusions, and she will only occasionally drink even Haji's blood—although consuming blood is necessary for her to keep her strength up especially later in the series.

» » » self-isolation(-)
- It's not surprising, given the above, that Saya chooses to isolate herself from others.
- This tendency begins with her need to protect herself from people chasing after her following the tragedy at Joel's birthday party, and continues through her and Haji's time assisting the Red Shield.
- Saya only really knows and trusts Haji the best, out of most of the people in her life. She also tries to push him away at her lowest points, expressing her regret that he has to suffer (physically and mentally) on her behalf.
- She is quick to see a separation between herself and humans and act on it. The fact of the matter is that whenever Saya is around a group of people, she usually sees those people come in harm's way. It's a result of both the actions of Diva's crew and her own faulty thinking that she keeps a distance from the people she loves.
- There are also few characters, even among Chiropterans, who are capable of understanding all of what Saya deals with. This is naturally isolating and Saya picks up on it, interpreting things as better off with her alone or only with Haji.
- Saya's desire for isolation from others is so strong that she often refuses to ask for help right away, even with simple matters. She has to be reminded by Haji that she can sometimes depend on her friends' kindness to hitch a ride.

Powers and Abilities:

- Saya is a Chiropteran, creatures that are essentially similar to vampires but not completely. Their true appearance is that of monsters, though they can adopt human forms. Chiropterans feed off of the blood of humans and enjoy multiple superhuman abilities, such as: healing instantaneously from wounds, heightened senses, and enhanced fighting capabilities.

- She shares a telepathic link with her younger twin sister Diva.

- Saya has immense skill with handling a sword in combat, especially her katana. Because of her Chiropteran nature, she has great strength, speed, and resilience.

- Saya recovers from most wounds, even very serious ones, with time for her regeneration abilities to heal her body. The one main way of permanently killing her is combining her blood with her sister's, which begins lethal crystallization. Saya's blood is also toxic to Diva, Diva's Chevaliers, and any Chiropterans created with Diva's blood as a base.

- Saya must ingest blood in order to keep up her strength and other abilities.

- Saya is a Chiropteran Queen, which means that her blood can transform humans into something called "Chevaliers"—high-powered Chiropterans just beneath a queen who are loyal to their respective queen and capable of retaining human form. Queens have other unique traits like never aging past 16, having a long hibernation period every 2-3 years once they make their first Chevalier, always being born as pairs of twin girls with mutually toxic blood, continuing the species by mating with the opposing queen's Chevalier, and shapeshifting into those they feed from.

- Saya is familiar with playing the cello, dancing, fencing, and other pasttimes that a privileged young woman growing up in 1800s France would be able to practice.

Inventory: her katana

Samples: thoughts (partially influenced by event effect of euphoria); dialogue; top-level with examples of both thoughts and dialogue in "lies travel in company"