Character abilities:Modified slightly from C/P of his LA app; I am so sorry about this wall of text.
PREFACE/GLOSSARY/the-app-won’t-make-sense-if-you-don’t-read-this: The Seventh Fonon is a magical particle affiliated with sound, memory, and healing. Generally only a small percentage of Auldrant’s population is capable of using it (these people are called Seventh Fonists). Abilities in the Tales series in general are called artes - strike and arcane artes are physical attacks with an element of magic to them (eg lighting your sword on fire before hitting something), while fonic artes are traditional spells (all with incantations in the game, but they often get skipped in the anime).
CHUNK #1: PASSIVE THINGS. Asch is, on a purely human level, an excellent swordsman and athlete, and a fully trained soldier. While the Abyss "normal" seems to be different from that in our world, he's strong enough to literally punch people into the air and jump ten feet up from a standstill. While it's implied that the ridiculous strength of the Abyss cast is from infusing their own bodies with fonons (evidence: how much weaker Jade gets when his fon slots are sealed), it's still a "passive" ability. Also, fonists have the ability to sense the elemental particles of fonons, especially when they're in high concentration (basically: low-key elementally based magic sense).
CHUNK #2: ARTES. Asch has a full list of strike artes (including Luke's sidequest artes) and a short list of casting artes, which I'm not going to list out in full because there's a better list at the wiki and anyway we'd be here all day. Suffice it to say that he's very capable in combat - the major notable gap in his abilities is that he can't heal with anything other than the lame "10% to allies" of Guardian Field. I also tend to assume that there are generic abilities shared among fonists, such as heating water, that go without mention in the game simply because there's no need to talk about them.
A SPECIAL SIDE NOTE ON MYSTIC ARTES: AKA, limit breaks, but Tales Edition. Asch has one, Rending Saber, which is unusual because most characters have two but they apparently never finished programming his second one so whatever. They can only be used in Overlimit, which is a heightened state from your usual build-a-gauge system that prevents staggering and can basically be treated similarly to any other low-level super-mode. Rending Saber doesn't have any special requirements to use beyond landing a higher-tier arte on an enemy.
CHUNK #3: GENERIC SEVENTH FONIST ABILITIES. Although Asch is in theory a very capable Seventh Fonist, in practice... not so much. It's unknown if he can read the Score and known that he can't use healing artes, but logic declares that he has the potential to do so and be really good at it. He just didn't ever learn. Dingbat. Also, he has naturally perfect pitch and a good, if unpracticed, singing ability.
He can probably also test others for the ability to use the Seventh Fonon - on Auldrant the ability to use it safely is possessed by roughly 10% of the population (if you try to use it and don't have this ability, Things Go Bad Fast), but if that ever comes up I'll yell for mods before doing anything with it fuck this I am a mod I do what I like.
CHUNK #4: SCION OF LORELEI BULLSHIT, AKA HYPERRESONANCE. Possessing the fonon frequency of the Seventh fonon itself allows Asch to cause a single-person hyperresonance (that is, make seventh fonons vibrate together a lot). There's several instances of hyperresonance doing weird things in canon, but the most important is that it can be used to dissolve matter by vibrating it apart at subatomic levels. Asch can do so at will, but it takes a lot of concentration and isn't exactly stealthy, because it makes him glow and hyperresonance makes a weird humming noise. And comes with the risk of just blowing up if he screws it up, so he doesn't usually like to use it, either.
CHUNK #5: PERFECT ISOFON PROBLEMS. Not only is Asch a perfect isofon of Lorelei, but his replica is in turn a perfect isofon of him. Thus, the three of them can utilize a mental fon slot connection to speak telepathically (although, in practice, it's mostly Asch yelling at Luke). Said connection usually causes an awful headache for the receiving party, for unknown reasons. Asch can also spy on Luke through this connection (seemingly by looking through Luke's own senses, although canon isn't exactly clear) without Luke being aware of it. (It presumably could be used the other way around, but... Luke is not precisely skilled at his world's magic-type skills.)
Also, since that connection was opened, Asch spent the last several months slowly dying as his fonons fucked off to go hang out with Luke instead (just like everyone else in his life) (thanks, replica). The result was something very like a degenerative illness - decreased strength both physically and magically, lowered endurance, occasional bouts of disturbing numbness and/or pain, etc. If this had run to its conclusion, Asch would have "died" and then woken up in Luke's body with Luke's memories as an appendix on his own. Fun times for everyone.
CHUNK #6: NON-COMBAT ABILITIES. Outside of combat and other fonon related abilities, Asch has a decent grasp of court manners, geography, and a few other more academic subjects. He's an excellent cook, especially of Japanese and American foods (by Earth standards). He knows his way around religious doctrine and is passable at infiltration-type activities. Auldrant's technology level is below ours, but selectively; Asch has some basic computer skills, but would probably be more at home with command prompts than touchscreens. His wilderness survival skills are not quite top-notch, for a setting with Earth-based florafauna; he'd be unfamiliar with most of them except in the most general way, but has the basic skills required for hunting, starting a fire, clean water, etc, etc. Inventory: -> Clothes worn (tunic, undershirt, leggings, high boots, sword belt + scabbard) + 18 cactus spikes in hair -> Two swords (they were in him); technically replica weapons and thus 100% Seventh Fonon, but unless you poke them with a "is this magic?" sense of some sort they're just normal swords. (one in sword belt, the other strapped to his pack without sheath) -> Handful of basic personal travelling supplies (pocketknife, hairbrush, whetstone, small sewing kit, small canteen, 2 cord hair ties, cloth sack) in a belt pack that you probably couldn't cram much more into if you tried -> Waterproof large travelling pack, with a 1.5 liter canteen hooked onto it, containing the below; strapped onto the pack is a cloak/blanket of light purple spidersilk (a gift from Muffet) -> Additional clothes (two pairs of jeans, two pairs of long underwear, two teeshirts, some extra socks) -> Food (several mangos and other tropical fruits, smoked fish, cabbage rolls) -> An extra knife, a toothbrush, a bit of fishing line, a couple of red feather charms (from the aftermath of the sun-going-out event party) and a couple of black chocobo feathers (from Ardyn's Hraesvelgr)
no subject
PREFACE/GLOSSARY/the-app-won’t-make-sense-if-you-don’t-read-this: The Seventh Fonon is a magical particle affiliated with sound, memory, and healing. Generally only a small percentage of Auldrant’s population is capable of using it (these people are called Seventh Fonists). Abilities in the Tales series in general are called artes - strike and arcane artes are physical attacks with an element of magic to them (eg lighting your sword on fire before hitting something), while fonic artes are traditional spells (all with incantations in the game, but they often get skipped in the anime).
CHUNK #1: PASSIVE THINGS. Asch is, on a purely human level, an excellent swordsman and athlete, and a fully trained soldier. While the Abyss "normal" seems to be different from that in our world, he's strong enough to literally punch people into the air and jump ten feet up from a standstill. While it's implied that the ridiculous strength of the Abyss cast is from infusing their own bodies with fonons (evidence: how much weaker Jade gets when his fon slots are sealed), it's still a "passive" ability. Also, fonists have the ability to sense the elemental particles of fonons, especially when they're in high concentration (basically: low-key elementally based magic sense).
CHUNK #2: ARTES. Asch has a full list of strike artes (including Luke's sidequest artes) and a short list of casting artes, which I'm not going to list out in full because there's a better list at the wiki and anyway we'd be here all day. Suffice it to say that he's very capable in combat - the major notable gap in his abilities is that he can't heal with anything other than the lame "10% to allies" of Guardian Field. I also tend to assume that there are generic abilities shared among fonists, such as heating water, that go without mention in the game simply because there's no need to talk about them.
A SPECIAL SIDE NOTE ON MYSTIC ARTES: AKA, limit breaks, but Tales Edition. Asch has one, Rending Saber, which is unusual because most characters have two but they apparently never finished programming his second one so whatever. They can only be used in Overlimit, which is a heightened state from your usual build-a-gauge system that prevents staggering and can basically be treated similarly to any other low-level super-mode. Rending Saber doesn't have any special requirements to use beyond landing a higher-tier arte on an enemy.
CHUNK #3: GENERIC SEVENTH FONIST ABILITIES. Although Asch is in theory a very capable Seventh Fonist, in practice... not so much. It's unknown if he can read the Score and known that he can't use healing artes, but logic declares that he has the potential to do so and be really good at it. He just didn't ever learn. Dingbat. Also, he has naturally perfect pitch and a good, if unpracticed, singing ability.
He can probably also test others for the ability to use the Seventh Fonon - on Auldrant the ability to use it safely is possessed by roughly 10% of the population (if you try to use it and don't have this ability, Things Go Bad Fast), but if that ever comes up
I'll yell for mods before doing anything with itfuck this I am a mod I do what I like.CHUNK #4: SCION OF LORELEI BULLSHIT, AKA HYPERRESONANCE. Possessing the fonon frequency of the Seventh fonon itself allows Asch to cause a single-person hyperresonance (that is, make seventh fonons vibrate together a lot). There's several instances of hyperresonance doing weird things in canon, but the most important is that it can be used to dissolve matter by vibrating it apart at subatomic levels. Asch can do so at will, but it takes a lot of concentration and isn't exactly stealthy, because it makes him glow and hyperresonance makes a weird humming noise. And comes with the risk of just blowing up if he screws it up, so he doesn't usually like to use it, either.
CHUNK #5: PERFECT ISOFON PROBLEMS. Not only is Asch a perfect isofon of Lorelei, but his replica is in turn a perfect isofon of him. Thus, the three of them can utilize a mental fon slot connection to speak telepathically (although, in practice, it's mostly Asch yelling at Luke). Said connection usually causes an awful headache for the receiving party, for unknown reasons. Asch can also spy on Luke through this connection (seemingly by looking through Luke's own senses, although canon isn't exactly clear) without Luke being aware of it. (It presumably could be used the other way around, but... Luke is not precisely skilled at his world's magic-type skills.)
Also, since that connection was opened, Asch spent the last several months slowly dying as his fonons fucked off to go hang out with Luke instead (just like everyone else in his life) (thanks, replica). The result was something very like a degenerative illness - decreased strength both physically and magically, lowered endurance, occasional bouts of disturbing numbness and/or pain, etc. If this had run to its conclusion, Asch would have "died" and then woken up in Luke's body with Luke's memories as an appendix on his own. Fun times for everyone.
CHUNK #6: NON-COMBAT ABILITIES. Outside of combat and other fonon related abilities, Asch has a decent grasp of court manners, geography, and a few other more academic subjects. He's an excellent cook, especially of Japanese and American foods (by Earth standards). He knows his way around religious doctrine and is passable at infiltration-type activities. Auldrant's technology level is below ours, but selectively; Asch has some basic computer skills, but would probably be more at home with command prompts than touchscreens. His wilderness survival skills are not quite top-notch, for a setting with Earth-based florafauna; he'd be unfamiliar with most of them except in the most general way, but has the basic skills required for hunting, starting a fire, clean water, etc, etc.
Inventory:
-> Clothes worn (tunic, undershirt, leggings, high boots, sword belt + scabbard) + 18 cactus spikes in hair
-> Two swords (they were in him); technically replica weapons and thus 100% Seventh Fonon, but unless you poke them with a "is this magic?" sense of some sort they're just normal swords. (one in sword belt, the other strapped to his pack without sheath)
-> Handful of basic personal travelling supplies (pocketknife, hairbrush, whetstone, small sewing kit, small canteen, 2 cord hair ties, cloth sack) in a belt pack that you probably couldn't cram much more into if you tried
-> Waterproof large travelling pack, with a 1.5 liter canteen hooked onto it, containing the below; strapped onto the pack is a cloak/blanket of light purple spidersilk (a gift from Muffet)
-> Additional clothes (two pairs of jeans, two pairs of long underwear, two teeshirts, some extra socks)
-> Food (several mangos and other tropical fruits, smoked fish, cabbage rolls)
-> An extra knife, a toothbrush, a bit of fishing line, a couple of red feather charms (from the aftermath of the sun-going-out event party) and a couple of black chocobo feathers (from Ardyn's Hraesvelgr)
Samples: top-level tag-out