Luca

Name: Kota Imai (please, call me Luca!)

Age: 26 as of 2021

Gender: Male (He/Him)

Race: Pangolin Shifter (Gaian)

Preferences: Greysexual, Demi/Biromantic

Status: Dating

Met Through: Ember from Phoenix Down Conjures

Luca isn’t especially tall or short, standing at around 5’5”. His style is certainly influenced by J-Pop and K-Pop male idols, and while he doesn’t listen to them much himself (although he used to want to be one when he was tiny, before he learned more about the realities of the industry), Luca considers the boys that are part of these groups to be a personal beauty standard for how he wishes to present himself to the world. Luca tries to emulate their sense of style, mimicking fashion trends he likes and leading by their example to make his outsides shine in a way his insides, he feels, never could. To this end, Luca’s hair is often kept a bit on the shaggier side and he often uses at-home dye kits to get a unique split colour style. His eyes are a deep, dark brown that are nearly black, but Luca needs some pretty strong glasses and hates wearing them, so he has opted for coloured contact lenses. While he most often wears a soft green colour, Luca sometimes mixes it up with blue, purple, and even on occasion white-out lenses during the “spookier seasons”.

I included a “mood board” of various human references (and some pangolin) to help you get a clearer visual of what his facial features, styling, and build look like. The first image is what I refer to as his “face claim”. The second image is how Luca styles his hair, along with thickness and texture. The third image is the colour of Luca’s hair with his unique duo-tone hair. The two pangolin pictures in the middle, of course, are just cute as heck and represent his beast form, while the final two at the bottom are examples of his usual choice of attire. Luca loves to wear lots of layers and has a thing for bulky infinity scarves. His style fluctuates between tailored and sleek and “bundled chique”. While he often dresses in earthier, more neutral, or darker tones, Luca also from time to time likes to wear soft millennial pinks, mustard yellows, wine purple, and even plum. His body type is quite thin, which is reflected in the last image on the bottom right. On top of this being a good outfit example of one of Luca’s more “tailored” looks, it’s also a great example of his body proportions.

Luca was born through in vitro fertilization and lives with his two mothers in Japan (same sex marriage is allowed in their version of Japan) and in a city very similar to Shibuya that serves as a central hub for two major rail lines. Luca takes full advantage of his subway pass he obtained as part of his tuition through his university (where he studies art with the eventual hope of becoming a successful manga artist and writer). Luca’s love of art started with his grandfather who actively practices kintsugi and was in many kabuki performances in his youth with a reasonable degree of fame. It’s no surprise that when Luca was a bit younger that he too was trained in the ways of kabuki, and while Luca has a great degree of reverence for this art form, he prefers the way of the pencil and the pen.

When Luca was a tween he decided to try and find his biological father. While typically sperm donors don’t have anything to do with any children born of their donations, nor is their contact info given out, Luca was determined to meet the other half of his “equation”, as he put it. He loved both of his mothers dearly, but Luca had always felt the pull to America and the puzzle pieces that felt like that were missing, preventing him from self-actualization. It took a few years, but Luca managed to track his biological father through a combination of DNA tests and online resources and Find Me sites. Perhaps out of sheer curiosity on the part of his father, Luca was extended an invitation to America. It took a few part time jobs to save up the money needed for the trip, but as soon as he was able to, Luca hopped on the plane and headed to America where he fell in love with Western culture.

Compared to his humble and tiny apartment he shared with both his mothers at the time, Luca’s biological father’s place was quite grand and lavish. Being a top surgeon in the state of California and with no family of his own to speak of, Dr. Lukas Müller (who was a very, VERY German man) had the means to live exactly as he desired. He had accomplished his dreams and worked hard in order to earn his place “within society”, as he put it. Lukas was an incredibly strong minded and ambitious individual, and with his permission, Kota adopted the name Luca in honour of his biological father, to somehow remain connected to this man Luca knew he’d likely never meet again, but also in the hopes of imbuing even an ounce of Lukas’ drive and ambition into himself. Luca had big dreams for himself, but none of the confidence to get there. Lukas was his dad after all, so that meant that Luca could be great too, right?

Well, life is not always so kind. Luca has certainly faced setbacks and hardships in his life that have made him more reticent with his heart and emotions. Sometimes the dream is prettier than the path, but even still, Luca tries his best to follow his heart. Luca does take rejection perhaps a little too harshly, often internalizing it, but instead of becoming self-loathing he is more likely to become quiet and reclusive and ten times more snacky. He has been the recipient of some overly harsh critiques that have left him wondering if he made the right choice for himself in regards to his aspirations, but because of this, Luca feels it makes him the perfect cheerleader for you. He recognizes and knows talent when he sees it, and he understands the sting of confusing, harsh, or unwarranted criticism both when it comes to his art and his writing. In the time he has spent at your side thus far, he has become, as he puts it, “one of your biggest fans”. He admires your artistic eye, your ability to bounce back from disappointments and keep trucking along your path, and your commitments to yourself. Luca says the saddest thing that can happen to an artist is sacrificing one’s vision in order to earn success. He appreciates your conviction in the kind of stories you want to tell and admires the fact that you don’t simply write what’s “in vogue” in the industry. For Luca, true artistry comes from individuality, and he firmly believes you are a fresh breath of air among the endlessly repeating tropes in the writing industry.

In return for allowing him to support you along your path, Luca offers you what little he can in the way of trips around his city and the neighbouring areas. He’s a fan of themed cafes and restaurants, karaoke bars, classic arcades, fireworks, flea markets, seasonal festivals, and street food. It’s Luca’s hope that he will be able to treat you to all of this and more, and he has set aside enough money to purchase you a kimono on the astral so you can attend some of his favourite festivals with him in style.

Luca is a bit socially awkward, but once you manage to get past his dorky exterior he’s quite soft natured and sweet. He seems to be most comfortable in his pangolin form, so he’s likely to spend most of his time on our Earth with you in his shifter pangolin form. In this form, Luca does at times get the urge to dig and scratch to create burrows, so while he’s not restless by nature, you may find that Luca fidgets a bit after long stretches of being unbundled. Pangolins live in deep burrows made of semi-spherical chambers, and while there still isn’t much known about pangolins in our world or Luca’s, Luca places his bets on his pangolin beast form being the reason why he’s so fond of layers.

During his time on Earth, Luca is likely to spend most of his time at your side like a tiny little carbuncle, keeping you quiet company, following you throughout the house, assisting with chores, and occasionally commenting on things throughout your day. Luca offers words of encouragement when you’re uncertain or doubting yourself or your abilities, and he is certainly a soft spot to land when you feel lost and directionless.

Luca is slow to open up due to his chronic shyness and fear of coming off sounding stupid (as he has a subtle stutter, and his thoughts can come across a bit clunky because of it), but considering you guys have now been together unofficially for some months now, I wager that won’t be much of a problem for you.

As you have already discovered, Luca most frequently presents as his human form through dreams and astral trips. He currently resides in the Gaia equivalent of Japan and is happy to take you anywhere your little heart desires. Luca hopes you won’t mind hitting up the vending machines along your path and popping in for some karaoke if you feel like singing!