Oakson, Channing

CHANNING OAKSON

Channing's personality is, at best, rather... needy. He is a creature of pure need, particularly for attention. He craves it with every fiber of his being - positive or negative doesn't matter to him, as long as he gets it. He's flashy, showy, and he can be brash, forward, flirty... anything and everything that will get him the attention he desires. More importantly, however, are the kisses. Oh how he loves his kisses. He wants to feel hands stroking down his spine, curling around his tail, rubbing at the base of his ears. Above all else, he wants to be loved.

I guess it's a good thing that he's the god of love, romance, and fertility, right?

In theory, it's his job to make sure that people are falling in love the way they're supposed to, finding their soulmates the way they're supposed to, and having beautiful children the way they're supposed to. However, in his mind, that's so much work, and he's left that sort of thing to his various cat servants long ago - which is probably why he got kicked out of the pantheon unofficially. Not that he minds. Oh no, he'd much rather have his kisses. Kisses are nice.

With his habits set up like that, is it any real surprise that he passes himself off as a nineteen year old pop star with a fetish for dressing up as a cat? Probably not. The boy is gay, flaming and proud of it, and he's made a scene leaning over and making out with cute men in the audience on more than one occasion. It's attention, it's love, and he craves it.

But he doesn't speak of what goes on behind closed doors. When he's left to his own devices, the god will be an absolute kitten, loving to be pampered. A bottom, he will - reluctantly, mind you! - submit himself to his partner, a result of some past events that he can't really remember. He loves to be collared and owned, but even when he's around one man, he can't stop. He always wants more. He wants more love and more passion, more kisses and more touches, more affection and more attention. It's an endless addiction, really, and Channing isn't going to break of it any time soon.

And they said gods couldn't be addicts.

Channing wasn't always a god. Once, a long time ago, he was a boy. He was a boy who was in love with a god. Every day he would go to the chapel to pray, and every day the god would do something to show his favor. The child was sweet, kind, gentle... always dedicated to the temple, even when he had no reason to be. He protected it when the people turned against the god, even as he himself was attacked. It was a time of famine, and the people had forsaken the gods in their hunger. But Channing still sacrificed. But Channing still suffered.

And so, when the time came and the boy was slammed against the steps of the temple, crying out in pain before a sword slammed through his chest... the god took pity upon him. He rescued the boy from the brink of death, turned him from a human to a god, and then he ensured that the little one would never be doubted again. He made it so that the people would think they killed him and that it was only his sacrifice of turning into a cat that saved them from the god's wrath.

Channing spent his younger godhood raised by this god, growing up with kisses and affection. His symbol was the cat, and he showed a talent for transforming into his chosen animal. He was happy enough, and for a long time, he was content to remain a simple caretaker, a minor god under the larger god of fertility. What did love matter under the god of marriage and duty?

But slowly... slowly Channing grew restless. When times changed and he was denied the love he had come to rely on, he sought it elsewhere, in the arms of other gods. He sought their attention and their romance, and by degrees, he seduced the role of the god of fertility away from his elder. He earned a place in the pantheon creating soulmates, tugging on the red strings of fate, and he was beautiful, desired by all the gods and never afraid to give out his kisses.

But his mentor was jealous. So what he did was pin the younger god one day to a pillar, ask him in honeyed words whether he would want to come back. And the young god refused; that was his mistake. He was threatened, cursed by the god for his betrayal by forcing him to forever obey whoever put a collar on him and always keen for the touch and love of another. He would become insatiable in his own need for attention, a just fate for what had been done to him, or so the elder had reasoned.

The younger god tried to save himself. In a flash, he transformed himself into a cat, running to the loom where he wove his red strings, and he placed a paw on his own at the moment of the binding of his curse, desperate to prevent the restraints from falling on him. Instead, the god's power was too much, and the string shattered in his grip, loosing him from all hope of ever breaking the curse for it was only the one who was attached to the other end of that string that could ever free him of his bindings.

The god was six hundred years old then; and it was unsurprising that he soon found himself keening, desperate and weak when he would go without love. The next thousand years found him increasingly leaving his work to the feline slaves that were his servants, the slaves in charge of creating the red strings and tying them to humans' fingers rather than attaching them the way he had. His job began to falter, and it showed in the human world as happiness suffered in marriages and the idea of true love slowly died.

It was at the point where he was caught in the arms of not one, not two, not three, but four gods at one time that it was decided that he had violated his godhood. He was stripped of his rank and his position in the godly realm, left only with the powers that would be integral to his survival as he was cast out to the mortal realm. He was sealed away by the other gods, a mistake never to be repeated, and for almost three hundred years, he slumbered in his prison between the worlds, visited only by past lovers who took pity on him and kept him alive.

Finally, after much pleading on his behalf, he was given a second chance. He was allowed to have his memories of his time as a god erased, his powers (and godly status) maintained as he was allowed to wake up alone. If he proved himself a worthy god once again, he would be allowed to rejoin the pantheon; if he didn't, he would stay on Earth forever mending the things he fixed. His time was measured by the terms of his memories, slowly restoring themselves to him and when they returned to him entirely, his time would run out for judgment.

Not that Channing knows that, of course. He's adopted his former human name and established himself as a pop star, making use of a singing talent that he'd had before, the feline appendages that come from the fact that he is a god with a cat representation, and his natural good looks as a god to make it big among the humans. He's remembered enough to know that he's the god of love, romance, and fertility, and that if he doesn't find people to love him, he'll die... but he's still not quite figured out exactly why he's here rather than in the godly realm...

Dear Dew,

I understand this is your thing. But it really ain't mine. I have no interest in having any creatures whatsoever. Not really. No. It seems entirely random and out of place for me with them being on the site in the first place. Not to mention that on an in-character level, Channing is too self-centered to ever take in something that could attract attention away from him. So yeah no, sorry Dew and no offense, but this ain't gonna happen. If I wanted to do stats, I'd go on a Pokemon site.

Channing looks and acts a lot like he's nineteen years old. Mentally, he is since that was approximately how old he was when he died as a human and was given new life as a god. In actuality, however, he's nineteen hundred years old, he's just not going to admit to it.

Channing is the god of love, fertility, and romance. While ordinarily he doesn't use the last part of that other than to bless couples - at least in theory at any rate - he instead opts to make use of the other two with plenty of aplomb. He loves attention and he loves to be loved, to the point where he will physically die without it. As such, to prevent himself from dying, upon occasion his body will release a subtle kind of magic that will make him smell better (and more attractive) towards males that he would consider a proper mate. He survives much as an incubus does, on love, though thankfully he doesn't need to take his pants off, just be stroked and kissed and given attention. Much like a cat.

Channing also has a pair of feline ears and a feline tail, both the same shade of pink as his hair. Although he passes these off among the mortals as something that is "normal" for him, a gimmick to attract others, they're actually quite sensitive. He loves to be stroked on the base of his tail, which will make him more or less melt into a puddle, one of his weak spots. He can also transform at will into a small pink-furred cat, which is more or less his godly symbol. However, he doesn't like doing it unless he's threatened, and due to one such story involving that, he's now unable to fully shift back into a "human" form and thus retains the ears and tail, as well as some of the mannerisms of a feline.

HORUS -- [b]HEART NO KUNI NO ALICE[/b], [i]boris airay[/i]; channing oakson