Ryuugamine Mikado (Shark) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitalemperor) wrote2012-02-15 03:36 am
digitalemperor) wrote2012-02-15 03:36 am
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» PLAYER INFORMATION
Player NAME: Leif
Current AGE: Heavens I am old now. Well past legal.
Personal JOURNAL:hara
IM & SERVICE: AIM: PM me for it
Player PLURK: Feel free to ask me in PM if you'd like it.
Current CHARACTERS: None!
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Ryugamine Mikado (yes he knows it's ostentatious)
Canon & MEDIUM: Durarara!! I'm taking him from the novels, but due to lack of translation for books 2 and 3, information from the anime is being used as well (which is pretty identical to the novels)
Canon PULL-POINT: After leaving chat in book 9, before book 10.
Character AGE: He'd be 17 now I think.
Character ABILITIES:THE POWER OF NUMBERS!!! Mikado is a very ordinary human, physically. In fact, a bit under average when it comes to strength, speed, stamina or any physical ability. PE is his worst subject in school. He is, however, the top student at his high school and he doesn't spend that much time studying--more often he's on the internet. He's incredibly smart and keenly observant. He can, when he's not being dumb, put together fragments of clues to come to pretty accurate conclusions quite easily, and he notes details and hangs onto them.
He also is very talented with technology, and catches on to such things easily and quite fast. He's also good at managing his personal finances and his time, as well as being a competent leader.
In short, he put all his stats in INT and CHA and WIS and maxed out his skill feats.
Character HISTORY: Mikado's wiki page for reference.
Mikado's life up to the end of middle school was rather boring. He lived in a small rural town, and for a while had his best friend with him to play with. He was often teased and bullied over his name and being kind of a wimpy kid in general, but with his friend at his side he was never lonely--and though he was a crybaby, Mikado would also be unexpectedly able to stand up for himself. Unfortunately said best friend, Kida Masaomi, moved off to Tokyo and left Mikado to be bored and listless and a homebody.
What do you do in a rural small town in Japan when you are far too intelligent for your own good, and crave, need, mental stimulation? Well, Mikado's solution was to buy a computer and become an internet addict. Using that to keep in touch with Kida, and to explore the wonderful world wide web, Mikado made a lot of internet friends and never saw the sun again. Or at least, rarely left his room when it wasn't for school and generally worried his parents into thinking he was turning into a hikikomori.
Then one day out of the blue Kida half jokingly invited Mikado to come to school with him in Ikebukuro, and Mikado's life changed forever. He managed to get permission from his parents by promising to pay all his own living expenses except tuition, and set off for Ikebukuro. He met up with Kida, found a shitty apartment, started on some internet jobs, and started high school at Raira Academy. Along the way he and Kida befriended the reclusive and quiet Sonohara Anri, and Mikado became acquainted with a ton of interesting and unusual people, most notably being Celty Sturluson, the headless rider of Ikebukuran urban legend, and Orihara Izaya, an information broker and large player in the time Kida had spent in Ikebukuro.
School life was peaceful for a while, peppered with strange incidents. An online group Mikado had founded, called Dollars (think of it as the derpy child of 4chan and Anonymous) got involved in an incident involving Celty. Mikado, as the anonymous founder of the Dollas group, used his network to try and help Celty find her missing head, which was unfortunately ultimately a failure. Later, incidents with a "slasher" began to increase, attacks happening to students even at Raira, until Anri got involved.
Anri being "attacked" by the slasher (a whole other plot involving Anri of which Mikado is mostly clueless) coincided with the resurgence of the color gang Yellow Scarves (or Bandanas or Turbans or Yellow Flag Orchestra, depending on the translator) and due to various things happening (and Izaya manipulating) Yellow Scarves, whose leader happened to be Kida Masaomi, and Dollars nearly ended up in a gang war. Thanks to Celty and some others intervening, it didn't get that far, though Kida did end up in the hospital, and all three--Kida, Anri and Mikado--realized the others had secrets they needed to share.
Kida, however, dropped out of school and vanished, keeping in contact only in the online chatrooms, before the three of them could sit and talk. Mikado made a promise with Anri that they'd clear things up, all three of them, once Kida got back, and until then they wouldn't ask each other's secrets.
Life went on peacefully for Mikado for a while after that, for about six months. After all the things that had happened with the slasher, Dollars and Yellow Scarves, it was already the new school year. He and Anri had to stay and work things out as class representatives, and they also had a new underclassman who was very interested in hanging out with them, by the name of Kuronuma Aoba.
There was an incident revolving around Celty that Mikado got caught up in, but had little affect on his life so I won't go into it--book four was more or less character introductions (for example Aoba) and filler action.
And then!
Starting in book five the plot around Mikado's life (along with other things) began to pick up again. The color gang Blue Square went to another town and caused trouble under the name of Dollars (though the members of Blue Square were also Dollars members; since Dollars, being an anonymous internet group, had only the need for a password to access it and register as a member). The gang of that area, led by a chilvalrist named Chikage, came to Ikebukuro for retribution. As that gang began to cause trouble with Dollars, Izaya happened to say some things to Mikado with the right timing--first by pretending to be Kida in chat and warning Mikado not to associate with Dollars, and then by calling Mikado as Izaya and talking to him in a friendly way and suggesting to Mikado that he was afraid of being 'left behind' by Dollars' development as a real world presence and not just an internet group.
This got Mikado thinking and wondering, and at the same time as all the trouble, Aoba appeared and revealed himself as the leader of the color gang Blue Squares. He offered Mikado the position of their leader, and Mikado, unable to decide, was wisked off by Celty when things got hectic. A lot of action happened, some Dollars members kidnapped some girls in retaliation to the outside gang coming in, and Mikado got himself beaten up trying to stop them. Realizing Izaya was maybe right, that he was afraid of being left behind by Dollars, and that he had no power as an individual, Mikado accepted Aoba's offer to lead Blue Squares.
And then he stabbed Aoba with a pen. To seal their 'contract' which was in reality just a blank page of paper with the blood from Aoba's stab wound. Aoba realized he may have under-estimated Mikado, and that his plan to use Mikado so he could take over Dollars might be back-firing.
But it was too late. Mikado hadleveled up in crazy awakened as a yandere begun his own plan. A plan to cleanse Dollars of undesirable elements and recruit members with his similar ideals. To this end he used Aoba and Blue Squares. And to this end he began to involve himself more and more in violence, which he used to abhor.
Later on, Kida returned to town, and even tried to stop Mikado. Kida appeared in time to save Mikado's life in a fight, but when Mikado lit the person he'd been fighting on fire, Kida was absolutely shocked at the change in his friend. The shy, timid, idealist he'd grown up with was now a cold, ruthless, gang leader. Unable to talk to Mikado, because Mikado told him tobuzz off mind his own business, Kida decided to revive the gang Yellow Scarves--which, before Mikado had come to Ikebukuro, had been the chief rival of Blue Squares and had a lot of bad blood with them.
Brewing gang war aside, Kida repeatedly attempted to contact Mikado in chat as well, and Mikado quit the chatroom, after confessing privately to Izaya that he missed the peaceful days with Kida and Anri, and yet at the same time completely ignoring Kida's private messages.
And that is around when Mikado is from.
Character PERSONALITY: If I could summarize Mikado's development it would be "the evolution of a naive, idealistic, good-hearted country kid with too much intelligence and curiosity, into a cold, ruthless, gang boss." Except that the cold, ruthless gang boss is not necessarily less of the idealistic, kind, nice boy he started out--at least not in many ways.
So let's go to the start, his personality when he arrives in Ikebukuro. He's excruciatingly polite. Overly so. He uses boku to refer to himself (which is a very cute and young boyish thing to do), he treats everyone very formally, even referring to Kida as "Kida-kun" for a while before thawing and calling him "Masaomi" (So informal omg!) after a few months. This is, let me remind you, the best friend he grew up with. Mikado is painfully polite. Speech patterns such as honorifics are all respectful and formal, and even the other best friend he makes, Sonohara Anri, is never referred to by her first name. He keeps people at a certain distance with his own politeness, sometimes.
When he arrives in the big city he's hesitant. Kind of a scaredycat who relies on Masaomi to tell him what's what and show him around. He stutters a little, and trails into or out of his sentences, and freaks out easily. Granted, a certain level of nervousness is pretty normal for a big move like he's undergone, and when he begins to relax his more playful side becomes apparent. He's sarcastic, energetic and cheerful, kind but direct--he will speak his mind, and when he believes in something that needs saying, screw being overly polite, he'll tell it like it is. And then he'll immediately second guess and wonder if he's been offensive, but only after addressing the issue. These are aspects of his personality from early on. He has a backbone, he has opinions, he has a very strong sense of self and especially ideals and Right and Wrong and a certain love of cliches and stories. It's just that the strong side of his personality is deceptively hidden under the polite, sometimes stuttering, timid-seeming exterior. He can seem to be, and often is, a contradiction unto himself, a bit paradoxical in his thinking, methods and mannerisms, and this is all even before events begin to change him.
He also starts out with a thirst for the unusual. He doesn't realize himself how truly intelligent he is, so Mikado often dismisses his own abilities and observations and intellect, not always having the confidence in himself that he should and relying heavily on the opinions of others at times when he's unsure. That aside, part of his intelligence is a certain craving for even greater mental stimulation--something he believes is a mere curiosity about the unusual, but is truly his own desire to find greater mysteries and challenges in the world around him. When confronted with the existence of Celty's headlessness, instead of being alarmed, Mikado was filled with joy. Something new, exciting, and unusual had come to exist in his world. This is how Mikado reacts, from very early on, to strange occurences that would alarm most ordinary people. He finds them exciting and seeks more. In this way he is also very willing to believe the most outrageous things, and places his trust and faith in people rather completely when he decides to trust them--which can be unfortunate, as even Mikado acknowledges his ability to discern a person's intentions is rather horrible. He will easily fall for manipulative and false people if they're convincingly sincere (take Izaya and Aoba as good examples of bad people Mikado either initially trusts or comes to trust).
As events move forward and his group, Dollars, gets more involved in affairs in Ikebukuro, as Mikado himself experiences more outrageous things within the city, it is revealed that there is almost another part of him inside his own personality--not another personality, exactly, but a different facet of himself. A very removed and calculating, detached persona. This does not make the part of him that is warm, friendly and kind any less real, but it is a part of himself he can switch to in the right circumstances. A rather scary part of himself that begins to develop as more than just an observational habit, as his love and thirst for the world and its wonders slowly becomes warped from joy to anger. As he begins to take on the decision to control Dollars and Blue Squares and involve himself with violence, his disdain for the world, and for those he deems "boring bastards" grows. He begins to look down on others that he finds to be distasteful--people he objects to morally, which is ironic considering his own degrading morals.
As his darker side grows, his ability to switch on that cold side of him becomes easier and more natural. But it does not end the part of him that was there to start with, though it makes it a little more of a facade simply in that he is just not that innocent anymore. Yet his kind impulses and honorable feelings and idealism remain completely genuine, he remains someone able to be upset and argue and smile, if more sadly and often less joyfully and openly. The two sides of him are both Mikado, and both the same person, and both exist in paradox and parallel to each other, but somehow it works. It definitely makes him a surprising and usually very unpredictable person--more often then not, the reaction or actions people expect of him are not the ones he gives.
Another note I must add is, though I stress his intelligence, he's also a complete moron. He misses very obvious things, either because he isn't paying attention or because he was just being derpy. And an almost sure fire way to get him to be an idiot is to get him to deeply care about that person--the closer he is to someone the less able he seems to be able to figure them out. Figuring out strangers? Not too hard (unless they seem nice and are actually bad people--more like, he is able to tell the moods of strangers easier, or when they might be hiding something). Guessing that something is bothering a friend? Completely oblivious! Not that he is unable to notice things entirely all the time, he's not that bad, but he has been known to miss painfully obvious signs of distress in his closest and dearest friends. Which beings me to friendship: Mikado takes it very seriously. He is a good (if rather oblivious) friend. He will care for his friends from the bottom of his heart and have faith in them and trust them and love them and protect them. Threaten his friends and he will light you on fire. And that's not metaphorical, he really will light you on fire, he is a tad bit yandere/crazy/frightening. He's a naturally friendly person as well, earnest, though not very flashy, he does talk to people easily, able to joke or be serious, though he can and often is awkward when he can't find a rhythm in the conversation and has to fall back on stiff politeness. In regular socializing he is basically just a polite, somewhat awkward, normal teenage geek with average social skills but a kind of earnest charm.
His interactions with his canonmates varies drastically depending both on the person and the canon point. Kida Masaomi, for example, from the first three books, is the person Mikado is most comfortable with. They're tactile with each other, tease each other, are always touching and talking and in contact. They're best friends who grew up like brothers. Even to book six or seven Mikado completely trusts and adores Kida and would welcome him back gladly. By book eight and nine Mikado himself has changed so much, and Kida has begun to move against him, that the least you could say is their relationship is strained and painful and full of a lot of unresolved and tense issues.
In contrast, once he becomes friends with Celty, Mikado regards her highly and consistently, seeing her as someone he can rely on and never really being at odds with her.
Anri, on another hand, is a complicated subject. The girl he has very serious and strong feelings for, but doesn't feel he can confess to for a lot of reasons which just get more and more complicated as time passes. But she is still and also his dear friend. Yet, unlike with Celty, Mikado is unable to confide in Anri.
He has a number of complicated relationships or just plain relations with at least half the cast of the novels--as one of the major characters, he knows most of the people in the series or has at least met them. As a general rule, then, he is polite with those he is acquainted with, and those he is closer to he interacts with according to the nature of their relationship.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: A PENCIL BAG. FULL OF PENS AND PENCILS AND ERASERS AND A RULER AND COMPASS AND PROTRACTOR AND EVEN A CELL PHONE. Fuck yeah bitches. Everyone will be so jealous of his protractor.
Joking aside, a pencil bag of school supplies. Only two items in it will actually be his sentient weapon, the rest will, in fact, just be school supplies.
Item the first: A cell phone. The exact same model as his from home, red, with a black and white checkerboard keypad and a checkerboard phone charm.
Evolution: Mikado, for all he gets in gang fights, is not a natural fighter. If anything, his skills are better suited to commanding and information. Information technology is, in fact, his favorite subject of study. The phone's appearance probably won't change much if at all as it gets stronger--the only difference will be the cell phone charm will shift in appearance depending on the phone's use at the time, or general level.
The uses of the phone will evolve--at first it will have the basic ability to record and store data and take pictures and video, use the calculator, play solitaire or angry birds or set his ring tone, like a normal phone, rather redundant. He will also be able to add "contacts" to his phone, and this is the first useful ability. These contacts he can then "call" on his phone, which is basically like requesting to summon them. The "call" can be refused or ignored, but if it is accepted, they then appear where he is. Later it will evolve to "conference calls", ability to summon two or more contacts, and finally the ability tocall on the power of numbers summon Dollars, which is summoning a large group of gray, anonymous NPCs who will obey Mikado's texts on his phone. "Calls" will last a set duration, after which the character returns to where they were previously. The higher level the phone, the longer the "call" can last. Likewise, as his phone levels, Mikado will be able to make more "calls" in a day without having to recharge his phone. When he gets "conference calling", the number of people he can "call" from 2+ will increase with level.
Obviously use of summoning contacts would be with actual, played characters and only with OOC and IC consent. But I think it would make a great possibility to build CR and plot around.
Item the second: In the event that no one answers Mikado's "calls" he also has a blue ballpoint retractable gel pen, everyone loves a visual reference. The pen won't evolve (except if I feel like changing the appearance but the appearance would be the only change) and aside from being good for writing with, the pen isn't too useful. It can be used to stab people, and gives a mild but temporary boost to stamina, strength and reflexes, possibly enough to dodge an attack or stab someone, but mostly just enough to run away. If Mikado does train physically, the boost will increase, but will only ever be an added percent of his current physical abilities. The other feature of the pen is it can penetrate any armor (pun intended). Then again this is only useful if Mikado's getting close enough to someone to actually stab them, which makes them close enough to stab, or hit, or slice him right back. And pens, while being well known for being mightier than swords, are not, in fact, well known for killing people with swords--possibly only for annoying them enough to show you why you don't bring a pen to a knife fight.
Chosen SKILLSET: Mikado doesn't really know how to stay out of things. He is not a fighter, but his ability to summon and his quick wit would make him versatile and potential useful in combat, if he can stay behind people who can keep him from dying lots. Otherwise his strengths are very much in his intelligence and technical skills.
But he'd want to be involved with missions, smart choice or not.
» SAMPLES
First PERSON: [A text post! Doing a video or voice chat first would be too bold! Nothing special about the text in particular though. The name attached to the ID number is "Tanaka Taro".]
Um, hello. It's a little strange having the net again, but it's really nice too. It's really something you don't know you'll miss until you don't have access any more...
Ah, it seems people have been introducing themselves here. We're stuck in some pretty strange circumstances, so, I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone!
I guess to start, I'm from Ikebukuro, Japan, 2011. My hobbies... Eh... It's a little awkward to think of what to write as an introduction.
Anyway, nice to meet you, everyone!
Third PERSON: Mikado sat with the little netbook device on his lap, browsing the entries on the transport network. This all felt incredibly strange and yet normal compared to the London he'd just been in. Wasn't that odd? Being thrust thousands of years into the future after being a hundred years in the past, all relative to his own timeline. He wondered if time travel was a thing you got used to, then? Or maybe it was just the technology. Really, a lot of it was so far beyond anything he could comprehend, on a mechanical level, but from a programming perspective, every machine needed a way to interface--and these were designed so the outsiders, the transports, would have relatively little difficulty using them.
Which made it all feel, in comparison to a world with no real technology to speak of, almost like being home.
Mikado really hadn't known how much internet, cell phones, modern conveniences of all types, had been just daily until they'd been gone. Even being dumped into an unknown, strange future, an uncertain and crazy situation, it was funny how easy it was to latch onto that bit of familiarity.
He glanced to the side, at the pencil pouch he'd liberated from the armory. There'd been a lot of weapons, and... Well, probably a lot more effective things. He could have picked a gun, or a sword, or one of those futuristic looking items right out of a Sci-Fi movie. But maybe it was, once again, a sort of longing towards the familiar that had him grabbing the item that looked so unsuited for combat. Or maybe it was that the item stood out a little, because amid all the rifles and spears and knives and spikey, bladed, burning, destructive items, an unassuming pencil bag appealed to Mikado. Was it affinity for something that stood out while at the same time looking really plain? Or was he just over-thinking it? The idea of a sentient, evolving weapon was definitely exciting and unusual, the whole structure of the place, its history and economy and people and technology, they interested Mikado.
He'd have to check out the archives that had been mentioned, and then... Well. But that was all later. Right now, he turned his attention back to the screen.
Really, even if they weren't people he knew, it was amazing how such a simple thing as having the internet really made a difference in his mood! It wouldn't hurt to chat online a little longer. He should get to know the people he was stranded here with as well, right? That was a good enough excuse to revel a bit longer in glorious, wonderful, advanced technology.
» ADDITIONAL NOTES
I'm letting him keep his memories of Emerald London (hijinks at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
gocirclegogo and information at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
occulere) with memories of Ushiromiya Lion, Willard H. Wright, and Jade Curtiss (cleared with the muns unless Farrah decides on TOMFOOLERY) as well as people whose exact identities he won't recall but whose impact on him will be retained. A lot happened in Emerald, but any physical or mental affects from the setting itself (like ambient madness and creeping insanity from the Lovecraftian setting) won't transfer with him, and he will not retain any of the abilities he learned there. He will remember it though. If he retains any actual useful ability from Emerald, it's a much better English vocabulary.
Mentally he's a bit different from his experiences. In his canon point he's already reached a level of crazy, cold ruthlessness beneath his genuine good guy, gentle nature. In Emerald the violent ruthlessness and detachment became more pronounced, but only in crisis situations, and while a bit more extreme than canon, not really that much more. The most notable difference is a greater willingness to kill if necessary instead of just maim/incapacitate/light on fire.
Player NAME: Leif
Current AGE: Heavens I am old now. Well past legal.
Personal JOURNAL:
haraIM & SERVICE: AIM: PM me for it
Player PLURK: Feel free to ask me in PM if you'd like it.
Current CHARACTERS: None!
» CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character NAME: Ryugamine Mikado (yes he knows it's ostentatious)
Canon & MEDIUM: Durarara!! I'm taking him from the novels, but due to lack of translation for books 2 and 3, information from the anime is being used as well (which is pretty identical to the novels)
Canon PULL-POINT: After leaving chat in book 9, before book 10.
Character AGE: He'd be 17 now I think.
Character ABILITIES:
He also is very talented with technology, and catches on to such things easily and quite fast. He's also good at managing his personal finances and his time, as well as being a competent leader.
Character HISTORY: Mikado's wiki page for reference.
Mikado's life up to the end of middle school was rather boring. He lived in a small rural town, and for a while had his best friend with him to play with. He was often teased and bullied over his name and being kind of a wimpy kid in general, but with his friend at his side he was never lonely--and though he was a crybaby, Mikado would also be unexpectedly able to stand up for himself. Unfortunately said best friend, Kida Masaomi, moved off to Tokyo and left Mikado to be bored and listless and a homebody.
What do you do in a rural small town in Japan when you are far too intelligent for your own good, and crave, need, mental stimulation? Well, Mikado's solution was to buy a computer and become an internet addict. Using that to keep in touch with Kida, and to explore the wonderful world wide web, Mikado made a lot of internet friends and never saw the sun again. Or at least, rarely left his room when it wasn't for school and generally worried his parents into thinking he was turning into a hikikomori.
Then one day out of the blue Kida half jokingly invited Mikado to come to school with him in Ikebukuro, and Mikado's life changed forever. He managed to get permission from his parents by promising to pay all his own living expenses except tuition, and set off for Ikebukuro. He met up with Kida, found a shitty apartment, started on some internet jobs, and started high school at Raira Academy. Along the way he and Kida befriended the reclusive and quiet Sonohara Anri, and Mikado became acquainted with a ton of interesting and unusual people, most notably being Celty Sturluson, the headless rider of Ikebukuran urban legend, and Orihara Izaya, an information broker and large player in the time Kida had spent in Ikebukuro.
School life was peaceful for a while, peppered with strange incidents. An online group Mikado had founded, called Dollars (think of it as the derpy child of 4chan and Anonymous) got involved in an incident involving Celty. Mikado, as the anonymous founder of the Dollas group, used his network to try and help Celty find her missing head, which was unfortunately ultimately a failure. Later, incidents with a "slasher" began to increase, attacks happening to students even at Raira, until Anri got involved.
Anri being "attacked" by the slasher (a whole other plot involving Anri of which Mikado is mostly clueless) coincided with the resurgence of the color gang Yellow Scarves (or Bandanas or Turbans or Yellow Flag Orchestra, depending on the translator) and due to various things happening (and Izaya manipulating) Yellow Scarves, whose leader happened to be Kida Masaomi, and Dollars nearly ended up in a gang war. Thanks to Celty and some others intervening, it didn't get that far, though Kida did end up in the hospital, and all three--Kida, Anri and Mikado--realized the others had secrets they needed to share.
Kida, however, dropped out of school and vanished, keeping in contact only in the online chatrooms, before the three of them could sit and talk. Mikado made a promise with Anri that they'd clear things up, all three of them, once Kida got back, and until then they wouldn't ask each other's secrets.
Life went on peacefully for Mikado for a while after that, for about six months. After all the things that had happened with the slasher, Dollars and Yellow Scarves, it was already the new school year. He and Anri had to stay and work things out as class representatives, and they also had a new underclassman who was very interested in hanging out with them, by the name of Kuronuma Aoba.
There was an incident revolving around Celty that Mikado got caught up in, but had little affect on his life so I won't go into it--book four was more or less character introductions (for example Aoba) and filler action.
And then!
Starting in book five the plot around Mikado's life (along with other things) began to pick up again. The color gang Blue Square went to another town and caused trouble under the name of Dollars (though the members of Blue Square were also Dollars members; since Dollars, being an anonymous internet group, had only the need for a password to access it and register as a member). The gang of that area, led by a chilvalrist named Chikage, came to Ikebukuro for retribution. As that gang began to cause trouble with Dollars, Izaya happened to say some things to Mikado with the right timing--first by pretending to be Kida in chat and warning Mikado not to associate with Dollars, and then by calling Mikado as Izaya and talking to him in a friendly way and suggesting to Mikado that he was afraid of being 'left behind' by Dollars' development as a real world presence and not just an internet group.
This got Mikado thinking and wondering, and at the same time as all the trouble, Aoba appeared and revealed himself as the leader of the color gang Blue Squares. He offered Mikado the position of their leader, and Mikado, unable to decide, was wisked off by Celty when things got hectic. A lot of action happened, some Dollars members kidnapped some girls in retaliation to the outside gang coming in, and Mikado got himself beaten up trying to stop them. Realizing Izaya was maybe right, that he was afraid of being left behind by Dollars, and that he had no power as an individual, Mikado accepted Aoba's offer to lead Blue Squares.
And then he stabbed Aoba with a pen. To seal their 'contract' which was in reality just a blank page of paper with the blood from Aoba's stab wound. Aoba realized he may have under-estimated Mikado, and that his plan to use Mikado so he could take over Dollars might be back-firing.
But it was too late. Mikado had
Later on, Kida returned to town, and even tried to stop Mikado. Kida appeared in time to save Mikado's life in a fight, but when Mikado lit the person he'd been fighting on fire, Kida was absolutely shocked at the change in his friend. The shy, timid, idealist he'd grown up with was now a cold, ruthless, gang leader. Unable to talk to Mikado, because Mikado told him to
Brewing gang war aside, Kida repeatedly attempted to contact Mikado in chat as well, and Mikado quit the chatroom, after confessing privately to Izaya that he missed the peaceful days with Kida and Anri, and yet at the same time completely ignoring Kida's private messages.
And that is around when Mikado is from.
Character PERSONALITY: If I could summarize Mikado's development it would be "the evolution of a naive, idealistic, good-hearted country kid with too much intelligence and curiosity, into a cold, ruthless, gang boss." Except that the cold, ruthless gang boss is not necessarily less of the idealistic, kind, nice boy he started out--at least not in many ways.
So let's go to the start, his personality when he arrives in Ikebukuro. He's excruciatingly polite. Overly so. He uses boku to refer to himself (which is a very cute and young boyish thing to do), he treats everyone very formally, even referring to Kida as "Kida-kun" for a while before thawing and calling him "Masaomi" (So informal omg!) after a few months. This is, let me remind you, the best friend he grew up with. Mikado is painfully polite. Speech patterns such as honorifics are all respectful and formal, and even the other best friend he makes, Sonohara Anri, is never referred to by her first name. He keeps people at a certain distance with his own politeness, sometimes.
When he arrives in the big city he's hesitant. Kind of a scaredycat who relies on Masaomi to tell him what's what and show him around. He stutters a little, and trails into or out of his sentences, and freaks out easily. Granted, a certain level of nervousness is pretty normal for a big move like he's undergone, and when he begins to relax his more playful side becomes apparent. He's sarcastic, energetic and cheerful, kind but direct--he will speak his mind, and when he believes in something that needs saying, screw being overly polite, he'll tell it like it is. And then he'll immediately second guess and wonder if he's been offensive, but only after addressing the issue. These are aspects of his personality from early on. He has a backbone, he has opinions, he has a very strong sense of self and especially ideals and Right and Wrong and a certain love of cliches and stories. It's just that the strong side of his personality is deceptively hidden under the polite, sometimes stuttering, timid-seeming exterior. He can seem to be, and often is, a contradiction unto himself, a bit paradoxical in his thinking, methods and mannerisms, and this is all even before events begin to change him.
He also starts out with a thirst for the unusual. He doesn't realize himself how truly intelligent he is, so Mikado often dismisses his own abilities and observations and intellect, not always having the confidence in himself that he should and relying heavily on the opinions of others at times when he's unsure. That aside, part of his intelligence is a certain craving for even greater mental stimulation--something he believes is a mere curiosity about the unusual, but is truly his own desire to find greater mysteries and challenges in the world around him. When confronted with the existence of Celty's headlessness, instead of being alarmed, Mikado was filled with joy. Something new, exciting, and unusual had come to exist in his world. This is how Mikado reacts, from very early on, to strange occurences that would alarm most ordinary people. He finds them exciting and seeks more. In this way he is also very willing to believe the most outrageous things, and places his trust and faith in people rather completely when he decides to trust them--which can be unfortunate, as even Mikado acknowledges his ability to discern a person's intentions is rather horrible. He will easily fall for manipulative and false people if they're convincingly sincere (take Izaya and Aoba as good examples of bad people Mikado either initially trusts or comes to trust).
As events move forward and his group, Dollars, gets more involved in affairs in Ikebukuro, as Mikado himself experiences more outrageous things within the city, it is revealed that there is almost another part of him inside his own personality--not another personality, exactly, but a different facet of himself. A very removed and calculating, detached persona. This does not make the part of him that is warm, friendly and kind any less real, but it is a part of himself he can switch to in the right circumstances. A rather scary part of himself that begins to develop as more than just an observational habit, as his love and thirst for the world and its wonders slowly becomes warped from joy to anger. As he begins to take on the decision to control Dollars and Blue Squares and involve himself with violence, his disdain for the world, and for those he deems "boring bastards" grows. He begins to look down on others that he finds to be distasteful--people he objects to morally, which is ironic considering his own degrading morals.
As his darker side grows, his ability to switch on that cold side of him becomes easier and more natural. But it does not end the part of him that was there to start with, though it makes it a little more of a facade simply in that he is just not that innocent anymore. Yet his kind impulses and honorable feelings and idealism remain completely genuine, he remains someone able to be upset and argue and smile, if more sadly and often less joyfully and openly. The two sides of him are both Mikado, and both the same person, and both exist in paradox and parallel to each other, but somehow it works. It definitely makes him a surprising and usually very unpredictable person--more often then not, the reaction or actions people expect of him are not the ones he gives.
Another note I must add is, though I stress his intelligence, he's also a complete moron. He misses very obvious things, either because he isn't paying attention or because he was just being derpy. And an almost sure fire way to get him to be an idiot is to get him to deeply care about that person--the closer he is to someone the less able he seems to be able to figure them out. Figuring out strangers? Not too hard (unless they seem nice and are actually bad people--more like, he is able to tell the moods of strangers easier, or when they might be hiding something). Guessing that something is bothering a friend? Completely oblivious! Not that he is unable to notice things entirely all the time, he's not that bad, but he has been known to miss painfully obvious signs of distress in his closest and dearest friends. Which beings me to friendship: Mikado takes it very seriously. He is a good (if rather oblivious) friend. He will care for his friends from the bottom of his heart and have faith in them and trust them and love them and protect them. Threaten his friends and he will light you on fire. And that's not metaphorical, he really will light you on fire, he is a tad bit yandere/crazy/frightening. He's a naturally friendly person as well, earnest, though not very flashy, he does talk to people easily, able to joke or be serious, though he can and often is awkward when he can't find a rhythm in the conversation and has to fall back on stiff politeness. In regular socializing he is basically just a polite, somewhat awkward, normal teenage geek with average social skills but a kind of earnest charm.
His interactions with his canonmates varies drastically depending both on the person and the canon point. Kida Masaomi, for example, from the first three books, is the person Mikado is most comfortable with. They're tactile with each other, tease each other, are always touching and talking and in contact. They're best friends who grew up like brothers. Even to book six or seven Mikado completely trusts and adores Kida and would welcome him back gladly. By book eight and nine Mikado himself has changed so much, and Kida has begun to move against him, that the least you could say is their relationship is strained and painful and full of a lot of unresolved and tense issues.
In contrast, once he becomes friends with Celty, Mikado regards her highly and consistently, seeing her as someone he can rely on and never really being at odds with her.
Anri, on another hand, is a complicated subject. The girl he has very serious and strong feelings for, but doesn't feel he can confess to for a lot of reasons which just get more and more complicated as time passes. But she is still and also his dear friend. Yet, unlike with Celty, Mikado is unable to confide in Anri.
He has a number of complicated relationships or just plain relations with at least half the cast of the novels--as one of the major characters, he knows most of the people in the series or has at least met them. As a general rule, then, he is polite with those he is acquainted with, and those he is closer to he interacts with according to the nature of their relationship.
» EXSILIUM INFORMATION
Chosen WEAPON: A PENCIL BAG. FULL OF PENS AND PENCILS AND ERASERS AND A RULER AND COMPASS AND PROTRACTOR AND EVEN A CELL PHONE. Fuck yeah bitches. Everyone will be so jealous of his protractor.
Joking aside, a pencil bag of school supplies. Only two items in it will actually be his sentient weapon, the rest will, in fact, just be school supplies.
Item the first: A cell phone. The exact same model as his from home, red, with a black and white checkerboard keypad and a checkerboard phone charm.
Evolution: Mikado, for all he gets in gang fights, is not a natural fighter. If anything, his skills are better suited to commanding and information. Information technology is, in fact, his favorite subject of study. The phone's appearance probably won't change much if at all as it gets stronger--the only difference will be the cell phone charm will shift in appearance depending on the phone's use at the time, or general level.
The uses of the phone will evolve--at first it will have the basic ability to record and store data and take pictures and video, use the calculator, play solitaire or angry birds or set his ring tone, like a normal phone, rather redundant. He will also be able to add "contacts" to his phone, and this is the first useful ability. These contacts he can then "call" on his phone, which is basically like requesting to summon them. The "call" can be refused or ignored, but if it is accepted, they then appear where he is. Later it will evolve to "conference calls", ability to summon two or more contacts, and finally the ability to
Obviously use of summoning contacts would be with actual, played characters and only with OOC and IC consent. But I think it would make a great possibility to build CR and plot around.
Item the second: In the event that no one answers Mikado's "calls" he also has a blue ballpoint retractable gel pen, everyone loves a visual reference. The pen won't evolve (except if I feel like changing the appearance but the appearance would be the only change) and aside from being good for writing with, the pen isn't too useful. It can be used to stab people, and gives a mild but temporary boost to stamina, strength and reflexes, possibly enough to dodge an attack or stab someone, but mostly just enough to run away. If Mikado does train physically, the boost will increase, but will only ever be an added percent of his current physical abilities. The other feature of the pen is it can penetrate any armor (pun intended). Then again this is only useful if Mikado's getting close enough to someone to actually stab them, which makes them close enough to stab, or hit, or slice him right back. And pens, while being well known for being mightier than swords, are not, in fact, well known for killing people with swords--possibly only for annoying them enough to show you why you don't bring a pen to a knife fight.
Chosen SKILLSET: Mikado doesn't really know how to stay out of things. He is not a fighter, but his ability to summon and his quick wit would make him versatile and potential useful in combat, if he can stay behind people who can keep him from dying lots. Otherwise his strengths are very much in his intelligence and technical skills.
But he'd want to be involved with missions, smart choice or not.
» SAMPLES
First PERSON: [A text post! Doing a video or voice chat first would be too bold! Nothing special about the text in particular though. The name attached to the ID number is "Tanaka Taro".]
Um, hello. It's a little strange having the net again, but it's really nice too. It's really something you don't know you'll miss until you don't have access any more...
Ah, it seems people have been introducing themselves here. We're stuck in some pretty strange circumstances, so, I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone!
I guess to start, I'm from Ikebukuro, Japan, 2011. My hobbies... Eh... It's a little awkward to think of what to write as an introduction.
Anyway, nice to meet you, everyone!
Third PERSON: Mikado sat with the little netbook device on his lap, browsing the entries on the transport network. This all felt incredibly strange and yet normal compared to the London he'd just been in. Wasn't that odd? Being thrust thousands of years into the future after being a hundred years in the past, all relative to his own timeline. He wondered if time travel was a thing you got used to, then? Or maybe it was just the technology. Really, a lot of it was so far beyond anything he could comprehend, on a mechanical level, but from a programming perspective, every machine needed a way to interface--and these were designed so the outsiders, the transports, would have relatively little difficulty using them.
Which made it all feel, in comparison to a world with no real technology to speak of, almost like being home.
Mikado really hadn't known how much internet, cell phones, modern conveniences of all types, had been just daily until they'd been gone. Even being dumped into an unknown, strange future, an uncertain and crazy situation, it was funny how easy it was to latch onto that bit of familiarity.
He glanced to the side, at the pencil pouch he'd liberated from the armory. There'd been a lot of weapons, and... Well, probably a lot more effective things. He could have picked a gun, or a sword, or one of those futuristic looking items right out of a Sci-Fi movie. But maybe it was, once again, a sort of longing towards the familiar that had him grabbing the item that looked so unsuited for combat. Or maybe it was that the item stood out a little, because amid all the rifles and spears and knives and spikey, bladed, burning, destructive items, an unassuming pencil bag appealed to Mikado. Was it affinity for something that stood out while at the same time looking really plain? Or was he just over-thinking it? The idea of a sentient, evolving weapon was definitely exciting and unusual, the whole structure of the place, its history and economy and people and technology, they interested Mikado.
He'd have to check out the archives that had been mentioned, and then... Well. But that was all later. Right now, he turned his attention back to the screen.
Really, even if they weren't people he knew, it was amazing how such a simple thing as having the internet really made a difference in his mood! It wouldn't hurt to chat online a little longer. He should get to know the people he was stranded here with as well, right? That was a good enough excuse to revel a bit longer in glorious, wonderful, advanced technology.
» ADDITIONAL NOTES
I'm letting him keep his memories of Emerald London (hijinks at
gocirclegogo and information at occulere) with memories of Ushiromiya Lion, Willard H. Wright, and Jade Curtiss (cleared with the muns unless Farrah decides on TOMFOOLERY) as well as people whose exact identities he won't recall but whose impact on him will be retained. A lot happened in Emerald, but any physical or mental affects from the setting itself (like ambient madness and creeping insanity from the Lovecraftian setting) won't transfer with him, and he will not retain any of the abilities he learned there. He will remember it though. If he retains any actual useful ability from Emerald, it's a much better English vocabulary.Mentally he's a bit different from his experiences. In his canon point he's already reached a level of crazy, cold ruthlessness beneath his genuine good guy, gentle nature. In Emerald the violent ruthlessness and detachment became more pronounced, but only in crisis situations, and while a bit more extreme than canon, not really that much more. The most notable difference is a greater willingness to kill if necessary instead of just maim/incapacitate/light on fire.