mungojerrie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mungojerrie) wrote2012-11-28 08:19 pm
mungojerrie) wrote2012-11-28 08:19 pm
NEKU
Personality: Neku Sakuraba is not good with people.
Well, that's not completely true. Neku Sakuraba thinks that he isn't good with people -- and for a long time, he was more than content with that fact. He preferred to drown out the noise of a city that he thought was boring, confining, and constricting with noise from his headphones instead. Eyes down, hands in his pockets, and music blasting, he was content to keep to himself, seeking out as little human interaction as possible to get by day-to-day. Neku earnestly believed that people weren't worth his time: they were fickle liars, each person looking out for themselves and no one else, and simply not worth his time. His world began and ended with him, and he trusted no one but himself.
Sullen, withdrawn, and spiteful, Neku was one of the most withdrawn people in the city of Shibuya. The only thing in life that gave him a real sense of joy was the art done by an enigmatic individual who went only by CAT. CAT's art and proverbs ("expand your world," "live each day to its fullest") touched something in Neku. He hated people, but he loved the art that he saw, and despite his dour attitude on humanity in general, that love for art fostered a large, incredible imagination within him. He wanted to emulate CAT, to be him. The secretive artist was everything that Neku wanted to be.
Most of canon deals with Neku changing, confronting his own ideals and coming to terms with what people are -- and what they could really mean to him. To survive in the Reaper's Game that he plays, he is forced to make a pact with a girl, Shiki Masaki, and initially Neku resents every second of it. At first, he rarely calls her by her name, preferring to refer to her as 'Stalker' or a simpler 'Hey.' He neither respects nor trusts her, and during the second day of the Game, is almost willing to kill her just for a chance to get out of the Game. Eventually, though, over the course of the first week, Neku discovers that in order to survive the game that he's going to need to open up -- and he does, if somewhat reluctantly. He begins to trust in and rely on Shiki, slowly realizing that the fact that people are flawed doesn't make them bad.
Over the course of the second and third weeks of the game, Neku forces himself to trust and eventually befriend his partners. It's not initially easy for him; opening himself up, especially with his life on the line, is hard for him, and feels counter-intuitive to everything that he believes. He eventually does, though, and even begins really enjoying the odd friendships that he finds with the other players.
I realize that is a bit longwinded, but Neku is an incredibly dynamic character. While he begins the game as reserved and misanthropic, by the end, he has befriended those that he played alongside. He has for the first time in his life really began to expand his world, opening it to let others in. Though he still prefers to listen instead of talk most of the time, he is more receptive to people than before (even if he does sometimes get short or impatient with Beat and Joshua's antics.) When he comes into the game, he will have just begun trusting people again, and while he's hardly the most social butterfly in the world, he openly enjoys spending time with the friends that he's made. (Scenes during the end credits of the game showcase him teasing Rhyme, and getting put into a headlock by Beat. This really highlights the change in him -- he's gone from being willing to kill to preserve himself to that, laughing and smiling like a normal teenage boy.)
Though Neku suffers from amnesia at the beginning of the game and therefore can't remember why he detests people so much, a lot of his issues stem from the fact that, years before, his one friend was killed in a car accident on his way to meet with him. Neku was hurt deeply by the loss, and responded by feeling betrayed. His friend had left him, abandoned him, and thus the seed for all of his trust issues were planted by that one accident and death.
Once Neku finally begins to open up to his friends, a playful side of him emerges, too, even in the heat of the Reaper's Game. He sometimes teases Josh and openly ridicules Beat, though it is never in a scathing or seriously derogatory manner. Despite Neku's ribbing, he is more than willing to give his all to help Beat fight to become the Composer and to rescue the friends that they both care about. Though he finds the other boy inexplicable and sometimes really annoying, he definitely feels a connection and friendship between them.
In short, Neku is a complex character who faces a lot of adversity in the Reaper's Game, but manages to not only adapt to his environment, but to grow because of it. While still occasionally sullen and introspective, he no longer considers life and the people in it stifling and troublesome. He acknowledges how important it is to care about people, and how necessary it is to give it your all when fighting for something that you care about. He is stubborn and sometimes childish, but he has a good heart and is willing to risk everything to protect the people close to it. He is quickly exasperated, occasionally short-tempered, but above all, dedicated to his cause and his friends.
Background: In Shibuya, Japan, there exists an Under Ground that runs parallel to the Real Ground. In this Under Ground, souls of the departed are sometimes given the chance to fight for their lives in a seven-day long event known as the 'Reaper's Game,' where teams of two souls - Players - must do certain tasks within strict time limits, or face permanent erasure at the hand of Reapers in the game. The event is orchestrated by a Game Master, overseen by a Conductor, and they all must defer to the singular Composer. Souls that reach the end of the game are given, at the discretion of the Composer, a chance to live again. All Players pay a price to play -- they must give up the one thing that is most important to them, and they will only get it back should they win.
The video game begins with Neku Sakuraba, dead and amnesiac, thrown into the middle of said Reaper's Game in Shibuya. Reluctantly, he partners with a girl by the name of Shiki, and initially hates every moment of it. She talked too much, kept secrets, and worst of all, simply annoyed the living hell out of him. Neku hated people, maintained that he neither needed nor wanted friendship, and thus resented the fact that he had to spend time around her. With the idea that he might achieve freedom from the Game by killing his partner, Neku nearly choked her to death telekinetically, only to be stopped by a mysterious man by the name of Sanae Hanekoma. He claimed that he was there to enforce the rules (and that what Neku had been tasked with doing was absolutely against them), and then insisted that it was important that Shiki and Neku trust each other.
Neku balked at this idea. He trusted no one, least of all the annoying girl that he had been stuck partnered with - at least, that's the belief he tried to hang on to. Over the course of the week, Shiki's determination and perseverance began to really get to Neku. Begrudgingly, Neku started to rely on her - not just in battle, but out of it, too. Two fellow Players - a boy named Beat and a girl named Rhyme - befriended Neku and Shiki both, and they made a deal to stick together. Beat annoyed Neku, but Neku admired Rhyme's patience and wisdom. The four struck out to complete a mission together, and in the midst of it, Rhyme was Erased. Mr. Hanekoma appeared again, ushering Beat away in an attempt to save him before he was automatically erased for not having a Partner in the game. Rhyme's erasure affected Neku more than he realized - it pinged him as familiar, though he couldn't figure out why, since he was still amnesiac. Shiki insisted that Neku admit that he was sad that Rhyme was gone, and eventually, Neku opened up enough to admit that he was. While he was hardly prepared to bare himself completely to Shiki, by the end of the week, he was slightly startled to realized that he actually sort of liked spending time around her.
Shiki and Neku make it to the end of the Game, only to be told that only one person can be brought back to life, and Shiki has been chosen. Neku chooses to play the Reaper's Game a second time, only to have his memories restored and to find out that, this time, his entrance fee is Shiki herself.
Memories in tact (save for the memory of how he actually died), Neku is determined to fight for his own life and for Shiki's, now. He pacts with a slightly mysterious boy by the name of Joshua. Josh is remarkably and purposefully enigmatic, often teasing Neku and treating the game with a very flippant attitude. Neku is reluctant to trust him, but keeps Mr. Hanekoma's words in mind about how important it is to trust his partner. Suspicious of Josh's frequent phone calls and the fact that he treats the Reaper's Game like it's simply no big deal, Neku struggles a little to work alongside him, even when Joshua reveals to him that his hero CAT is really Mr. Hanekoma himself. Eventually, based off of simple flashes of memories that he's gotten, Neku accuses Joshua of being the one to murder him.
The pair of them eventually make it to the Game Master, a math-obsessed Reaper Officer by the name of Sho Minamimoto. During the final showdown, Joshua steps in to take the brunt of a massive attack, saving Neku from it and defeating Minamimoto in the process. Neku remembers more of his death, and realizes that Minamimoto was there, too. Believing that Minamimoto had been the one to truly kill him and Joshua, innocent, had sacrificed himself to save Neku, Neku is hit with intense guilt and regret for not trusting him all along.
Again, Neku is given the option of playing in one last Game. He chooses to, but this time, his entrance fee is all of the other players. Beat, who had taken up the mantle of a Reaper, shuns the role and instead chooses to become a Player again, pacting with Neku. The two of them are the only Players in the game, and the Reaper's Game is that much harder for it. The entire point of it this time is to catch the Game Master - Konishi.
During this entire ordeal, the identity of the Composer is kept a secret to the player and Neku. On the final day of the final game, people and Reapers alike are being controlled and what seems like brainwashed by red pins that look almost identical to the black Player Pins that all players are given when they begin playing the game. Beat suggests that perhaps CAT - Mr. Hanekoma, the man who had helped them before - is the Composer, since the pins seem to be his designs. Neku initially revolts at the idea, but it makes too much sense for him to discredit it entirely. He realizes that Mr. Hanekoma plays some sort of role in the Reaper's Game, and can't figure out what. Suspicious and a little hurt, he and Beat head to the sewer, where the Composer is supposed to be to confront him.
There, Neku and Beat find and fight the Game Master for that week, Konishi, and defeat her. Neku and Beat begin to head into the sewer, still in search of the Composer, and this is the point I will be taking Neku from.
Abilities/Additional Notes: When Pacted and part of the game, Neku has the ability to use things called Psychs. They are small pins that tap into the power of imagination, which Neku (despite his sometimes surly attitude) has an abundance of. He is one of the few Players in the game that is able to use all of the Psychs that he comes across and not just a select few of a certain subtype. Neku will only be bringing with him the psychs that he is wearing, and I have limited that two: one that will allow him to use telekinesis and one that allows him to summon jets of fire along the ground. The second one can only be used when he is fighting with a partner. Neither of them last infinitely - Neku can only tap into their power for short bursts at a time. He will also be carrying with him a player pin, which affords him in-game protection against mind-reading, and I'd like to know if it would be possible for him to keep that as a mental shield.
As a note: he can only make Pacts with other players in the Reaper's Game, so that limits him to Beat, Shiki, Rhyme, and Joshua.
Sample Journal Post: [The feed flips on to showcase the face of a scowling teenage boy. He is slightly out of breath, incensed, and the pair of black and purple headphones stand out in sharp contrast against the bright orange red shock of hair. By the way he holds the device, he's familiar with this sort of technology.]
Whoever's doing this - if this is another game -
[Neku swallows. His jaw is set; he's clearly on the edge of reason right now.]
I'm sick of playing! This can't be fair! I've fought my way here - now give me my partner back, and let me see the Composer. I've earned this.
[And there it is - the tinge of desperation in his voice as he glares at the PCD, before ending the feed and sending it to the network.]
Sample RP: Neku groaned as he swung his legs over the edge of the cot that he'd been lying on and sat up. He had been staying at the clinic since he'd arrived days ago, and sleep still came only in fitful, restless bursts. He kept expecting to wake up in Scramble Crossing back in Shibuya, ready to fidget nervously with his phone until the mission mail for the day arrived.
It hadn't happened yet. No, he was still trapped in Adstringendum with people that he had been convinced he would never see again, and instead of reassuring him, it simply made him sick to his stomach. He had so much to do at home. He had the Composer to confront, Shiki and Rhyme to save. Neku slammed a fist that he hadn't realized he had been clenching down onto the top of the cot, wincing a little when the side of it smacked the metal frame.
Ow.
Suddenly, he felt ridiculous. What the hell was this going to accomplish? He sighed as he dragged his fingers through his hair, leaning down to grab his shirt and yank it on over his head. As an afterthought, he snagged his headphones, too, pulling them even though they weren't exactly connected to anything. Shiki has that dumb stuffed pig, I've got my headphones. I'm allowed.
But maybe a walk would help him sleep. Something had to. With a conceding sigh, Neku slid on his shoes and headed toward the door.
Well, that's not completely true. Neku Sakuraba thinks that he isn't good with people -- and for a long time, he was more than content with that fact. He preferred to drown out the noise of a city that he thought was boring, confining, and constricting with noise from his headphones instead. Eyes down, hands in his pockets, and music blasting, he was content to keep to himself, seeking out as little human interaction as possible to get by day-to-day. Neku earnestly believed that people weren't worth his time: they were fickle liars, each person looking out for themselves and no one else, and simply not worth his time. His world began and ended with him, and he trusted no one but himself.
Sullen, withdrawn, and spiteful, Neku was one of the most withdrawn people in the city of Shibuya. The only thing in life that gave him a real sense of joy was the art done by an enigmatic individual who went only by CAT. CAT's art and proverbs ("expand your world," "live each day to its fullest") touched something in Neku. He hated people, but he loved the art that he saw, and despite his dour attitude on humanity in general, that love for art fostered a large, incredible imagination within him. He wanted to emulate CAT, to be him. The secretive artist was everything that Neku wanted to be.
Most of canon deals with Neku changing, confronting his own ideals and coming to terms with what people are -- and what they could really mean to him. To survive in the Reaper's Game that he plays, he is forced to make a pact with a girl, Shiki Masaki, and initially Neku resents every second of it. At first, he rarely calls her by her name, preferring to refer to her as 'Stalker' or a simpler 'Hey.' He neither respects nor trusts her, and during the second day of the Game, is almost willing to kill her just for a chance to get out of the Game. Eventually, though, over the course of the first week, Neku discovers that in order to survive the game that he's going to need to open up -- and he does, if somewhat reluctantly. He begins to trust in and rely on Shiki, slowly realizing that the fact that people are flawed doesn't make them bad.
Over the course of the second and third weeks of the game, Neku forces himself to trust and eventually befriend his partners. It's not initially easy for him; opening himself up, especially with his life on the line, is hard for him, and feels counter-intuitive to everything that he believes. He eventually does, though, and even begins really enjoying the odd friendships that he finds with the other players.
I realize that is a bit longwinded, but Neku is an incredibly dynamic character. While he begins the game as reserved and misanthropic, by the end, he has befriended those that he played alongside. He has for the first time in his life really began to expand his world, opening it to let others in. Though he still prefers to listen instead of talk most of the time, he is more receptive to people than before (even if he does sometimes get short or impatient with Beat and Joshua's antics.) When he comes into the game, he will have just begun trusting people again, and while he's hardly the most social butterfly in the world, he openly enjoys spending time with the friends that he's made. (Scenes during the end credits of the game showcase him teasing Rhyme, and getting put into a headlock by Beat. This really highlights the change in him -- he's gone from being willing to kill to preserve himself to that, laughing and smiling like a normal teenage boy.)
Though Neku suffers from amnesia at the beginning of the game and therefore can't remember why he detests people so much, a lot of his issues stem from the fact that, years before, his one friend was killed in a car accident on his way to meet with him. Neku was hurt deeply by the loss, and responded by feeling betrayed. His friend had left him, abandoned him, and thus the seed for all of his trust issues were planted by that one accident and death.
Once Neku finally begins to open up to his friends, a playful side of him emerges, too, even in the heat of the Reaper's Game. He sometimes teases Josh and openly ridicules Beat, though it is never in a scathing or seriously derogatory manner. Despite Neku's ribbing, he is more than willing to give his all to help Beat fight to become the Composer and to rescue the friends that they both care about. Though he finds the other boy inexplicable and sometimes really annoying, he definitely feels a connection and friendship between them.
In short, Neku is a complex character who faces a lot of adversity in the Reaper's Game, but manages to not only adapt to his environment, but to grow because of it. While still occasionally sullen and introspective, he no longer considers life and the people in it stifling and troublesome. He acknowledges how important it is to care about people, and how necessary it is to give it your all when fighting for something that you care about. He is stubborn and sometimes childish, but he has a good heart and is willing to risk everything to protect the people close to it. He is quickly exasperated, occasionally short-tempered, but above all, dedicated to his cause and his friends.
Background: In Shibuya, Japan, there exists an Under Ground that runs parallel to the Real Ground. In this Under Ground, souls of the departed are sometimes given the chance to fight for their lives in a seven-day long event known as the 'Reaper's Game,' where teams of two souls - Players - must do certain tasks within strict time limits, or face permanent erasure at the hand of Reapers in the game. The event is orchestrated by a Game Master, overseen by a Conductor, and they all must defer to the singular Composer. Souls that reach the end of the game are given, at the discretion of the Composer, a chance to live again. All Players pay a price to play -- they must give up the one thing that is most important to them, and they will only get it back should they win.
The video game begins with Neku Sakuraba, dead and amnesiac, thrown into the middle of said Reaper's Game in Shibuya. Reluctantly, he partners with a girl by the name of Shiki, and initially hates every moment of it. She talked too much, kept secrets, and worst of all, simply annoyed the living hell out of him. Neku hated people, maintained that he neither needed nor wanted friendship, and thus resented the fact that he had to spend time around her. With the idea that he might achieve freedom from the Game by killing his partner, Neku nearly choked her to death telekinetically, only to be stopped by a mysterious man by the name of Sanae Hanekoma. He claimed that he was there to enforce the rules (and that what Neku had been tasked with doing was absolutely against them), and then insisted that it was important that Shiki and Neku trust each other.
Neku balked at this idea. He trusted no one, least of all the annoying girl that he had been stuck partnered with - at least, that's the belief he tried to hang on to. Over the course of the week, Shiki's determination and perseverance began to really get to Neku. Begrudgingly, Neku started to rely on her - not just in battle, but out of it, too. Two fellow Players - a boy named Beat and a girl named Rhyme - befriended Neku and Shiki both, and they made a deal to stick together. Beat annoyed Neku, but Neku admired Rhyme's patience and wisdom. The four struck out to complete a mission together, and in the midst of it, Rhyme was Erased. Mr. Hanekoma appeared again, ushering Beat away in an attempt to save him before he was automatically erased for not having a Partner in the game. Rhyme's erasure affected Neku more than he realized - it pinged him as familiar, though he couldn't figure out why, since he was still amnesiac. Shiki insisted that Neku admit that he was sad that Rhyme was gone, and eventually, Neku opened up enough to admit that he was. While he was hardly prepared to bare himself completely to Shiki, by the end of the week, he was slightly startled to realized that he actually sort of liked spending time around her.
Shiki and Neku make it to the end of the Game, only to be told that only one person can be brought back to life, and Shiki has been chosen. Neku chooses to play the Reaper's Game a second time, only to have his memories restored and to find out that, this time, his entrance fee is Shiki herself.
Memories in tact (save for the memory of how he actually died), Neku is determined to fight for his own life and for Shiki's, now. He pacts with a slightly mysterious boy by the name of Joshua. Josh is remarkably and purposefully enigmatic, often teasing Neku and treating the game with a very flippant attitude. Neku is reluctant to trust him, but keeps Mr. Hanekoma's words in mind about how important it is to trust his partner. Suspicious of Josh's frequent phone calls and the fact that he treats the Reaper's Game like it's simply no big deal, Neku struggles a little to work alongside him, even when Joshua reveals to him that his hero CAT is really Mr. Hanekoma himself. Eventually, based off of simple flashes of memories that he's gotten, Neku accuses Joshua of being the one to murder him.
The pair of them eventually make it to the Game Master, a math-obsessed Reaper Officer by the name of Sho Minamimoto. During the final showdown, Joshua steps in to take the brunt of a massive attack, saving Neku from it and defeating Minamimoto in the process. Neku remembers more of his death, and realizes that Minamimoto was there, too. Believing that Minamimoto had been the one to truly kill him and Joshua, innocent, had sacrificed himself to save Neku, Neku is hit with intense guilt and regret for not trusting him all along.
Again, Neku is given the option of playing in one last Game. He chooses to, but this time, his entrance fee is all of the other players. Beat, who had taken up the mantle of a Reaper, shuns the role and instead chooses to become a Player again, pacting with Neku. The two of them are the only Players in the game, and the Reaper's Game is that much harder for it. The entire point of it this time is to catch the Game Master - Konishi.
During this entire ordeal, the identity of the Composer is kept a secret to the player and Neku. On the final day of the final game, people and Reapers alike are being controlled and what seems like brainwashed by red pins that look almost identical to the black Player Pins that all players are given when they begin playing the game. Beat suggests that perhaps CAT - Mr. Hanekoma, the man who had helped them before - is the Composer, since the pins seem to be his designs. Neku initially revolts at the idea, but it makes too much sense for him to discredit it entirely. He realizes that Mr. Hanekoma plays some sort of role in the Reaper's Game, and can't figure out what. Suspicious and a little hurt, he and Beat head to the sewer, where the Composer is supposed to be to confront him.
There, Neku and Beat find and fight the Game Master for that week, Konishi, and defeat her. Neku and Beat begin to head into the sewer, still in search of the Composer, and this is the point I will be taking Neku from.
Abilities/Additional Notes: When Pacted and part of the game, Neku has the ability to use things called Psychs. They are small pins that tap into the power of imagination, which Neku (despite his sometimes surly attitude) has an abundance of. He is one of the few Players in the game that is able to use all of the Psychs that he comes across and not just a select few of a certain subtype. Neku will only be bringing with him the psychs that he is wearing, and I have limited that two: one that will allow him to use telekinesis and one that allows him to summon jets of fire along the ground. The second one can only be used when he is fighting with a partner. Neither of them last infinitely - Neku can only tap into their power for short bursts at a time. He will also be carrying with him a player pin, which affords him in-game protection against mind-reading, and I'd like to know if it would be possible for him to keep that as a mental shield.
As a note: he can only make Pacts with other players in the Reaper's Game, so that limits him to Beat, Shiki, Rhyme, and Joshua.
Sample Journal Post: [The feed flips on to showcase the face of a scowling teenage boy. He is slightly out of breath, incensed, and the pair of black and purple headphones stand out in sharp contrast against the bright orange red shock of hair. By the way he holds the device, he's familiar with this sort of technology.]
Whoever's doing this - if this is another game -
[Neku swallows. His jaw is set; he's clearly on the edge of reason right now.]
I'm sick of playing! This can't be fair! I've fought my way here - now give me my partner back, and let me see the Composer. I've earned this.
[And there it is - the tinge of desperation in his voice as he glares at the PCD, before ending the feed and sending it to the network.]
Sample RP: Neku groaned as he swung his legs over the edge of the cot that he'd been lying on and sat up. He had been staying at the clinic since he'd arrived days ago, and sleep still came only in fitful, restless bursts. He kept expecting to wake up in Scramble Crossing back in Shibuya, ready to fidget nervously with his phone until the mission mail for the day arrived.
It hadn't happened yet. No, he was still trapped in Adstringendum with people that he had been convinced he would never see again, and instead of reassuring him, it simply made him sick to his stomach. He had so much to do at home. He had the Composer to confront, Shiki and Rhyme to save. Neku slammed a fist that he hadn't realized he had been clenching down onto the top of the cot, wincing a little when the side of it smacked the metal frame.
Ow.
Suddenly, he felt ridiculous. What the hell was this going to accomplish? He sighed as he dragged his fingers through his hair, leaning down to grab his shirt and yank it on over his head. As an afterthought, he snagged his headphones, too, pulling them even though they weren't exactly connected to anything. Shiki has that dumb stuffed pig, I've got my headphones. I'm allowed.
But maybe a walk would help him sleep. Something had to. With a conceding sigh, Neku slid on his shoes and headed toward the door.