XI_RPG Application
- PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Bookie
AGE: 19
PRONOUN OF CHOICE: She, her, etc.
EMAIL ADDRESS: wizard23229@yahoo.com
AIM SCREENNAME & MAIN PERSONAL LJ ACCOUNT: aim: bookworm1208 LJ: bookworm12890
OTHER CHARACTERS: Xion
- CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Yoshiya ‘Joshua’ Kiryu
CODENAME: N/A
SERIES/SOURCE: The World Ends With You.
AGE: For all intents and purposes, he looks about 22. He doesn’t actually remember how old he is, he got bored counting after the first century. (He’s 152.)
GENDER: Male
ROLE: Teacher! Musical Composition. (He can also do Japanese History or something if that would be a wanted class- we have enough Japanese kids.) Because obviously there is no way this could end badly.
BACKGROUND:
[Note: This Joshua is remarkably similar to that of canon!Joshua, but since this is AU I have taken a few liberties with headcanon (namely, his age, background before what we know of the game, and a variation of what might have happened after the game).]
Joshua was born in Tokyo, in very late Edo period. By the time he was eight, the Meiji period set in and Japan tried very hard to catch up with Western technology and government, as to not be exploited or left behind. As a member of a pretty well to do family, Joshua had received formal education before, but once complusory education was implemented he attended those schools. However, he didn’t get along with many of his peers. He isolated himself from them because he was a little more concerned with the Reaper’s Game.
The Reaper’s Game is a game where the dead have a chance to fight their way through to get a second try at life, in a separate plane called the UG. You’re not supposed to see it while you’re alive, but Joshua did, and it fascinated him. Eventually, he met a man named Mr. H, who told him all about it, and that you had to die to play. He tried to tell Joshua that it could always wait until he died and not try to force it- after all, Joshua had always been pretty sickly. He wasn’t happy to wait, and therefore tried to get sick on purpose- he ended up catching tuberculosis and dying of that in his early twenties. Mr. H wasn’t pleased about the doing it on purpose, but let it go.
Joshua made it through the game with ease, his partner at the end returning to life but Joshua opted to be a Reaper. He climbed steadily through the ranks, and settled to being Conductor of Tokyo for a while, but the fact that he was in contact with an Angel (Mr. H) made his Composer very nervous- and therefore, once the opportunity arose and Tokyo’s UG was divided into districts, Joshua was shipped off, and eventually settled in Shibuya with Mr. H as his Producer.
Unfortunately, after a while, Joshua didn’t think Shibuya was doing so well and was going to destroy it. His Conductor, Megumi Kitaniji, didn’t think this was a good idea so they made a bet- if Kitaniji could prove within a month that Shibuya deserved saving, Joshua would spare it, and Joshua could only interfer by use of a proxy.
Of course, being the really weird guy that he is, Joshua picked a proxy who was the perfect example of how he felt everyone in Shibuya was- reclusive, locked away in their own worlds so tight that they refused to reach out or create. The boy he picked was named Neku Sakuraba, who was, unfortunately, alive. So what does Joshua? Shoot him and enter him into the game.
Joshua hangs out for the first week watching Neku play, and then forces a pact between them in the second, making him Neku’s partner before Neku has a chance to reject it. He spends the week educating, protecting, and annoying the hell out of Neku. It doesn’t help that Neku finds that he can scan him, and, upon seeing part of the scene of his death (which he doesn’t remember), accuses Joshua of killing him. It really, really doesn’t help when one of the reapers ‘outs’ Joshua as being alive, because he has too much power to be a Player.
Joshua tells Neku (falsely) that he’s there to ‘jack’ Shibuya- defeat the Composer so he could take it over himself. Though Neku wants no part of it, Joshua insists that they at least find the Shibuya River, where the Composer lives. So Neku can find it later. During the final day of the week, the boss battle involves a huge beam of light. Joshua throws himself in front of this beam, saving Neku and leaving his proxy to believe he was dead.
Instead, Joshua used the power to zap himself to an alternate dimension, where he hung out talking to a version of himself and playing Tin Pin until Mr. H picked him up. Then he went back and basically told a very betrayed feeling Neku everything that had happened, and challenged him to one final game. If Neku shot him first, Shibuya would be saved. If Joshua shot Neku first, Joshua could do whatever he wanted. Neku was unable to shoot the one person he really felt understood him, so he lost his entry fee... but still woke up alive, in a still present Shibuya. He told Joshua (mentally) that he didn’t forgive him, but he trusted him, and still wanted to see him.
After the game was over, Shibuya was strengthened, any gaps that needed filling were no longer there. In essence, a perfect game.
Unfortunately, it was also time for punishments to be dished out.
Holding a three week game and letting his Conductor do all the work was not against the rules- however, forcibly entering someone into the game was. The Angels, who watch over the games, were kind of pissed at his flagrant disregard for rules- and a little on edge about the many loopholes he’d exploited in general. Still, shooting a Player who was eventually returned to the RG (even with an entry fee Joshua hadn’t told him about yet) wasn’t quite as heavy of a crime as what Mr. H had done.
Mr. H gave Sho Minamimoto, the second Game Master/boss, the instructions on how to make Taboo Noise, hoping that if Joshua was serious about destroying Shibuya, Sho would kill him and take over. Unfortunately, Sho didn’t have great control over the Taboo Noise, and some of them got away from him. They’re bad enough on their own, supposedly under someone’s control, but they can do bad things to UGs if let out. Which is why they’re forbidden, and why Mr. H was in trouble.
Joshua looked around Shibuya for a bit, wrangling up what remains there are, before he discovered something he didn’t like at all- namely, the fact that there were people who didn’t belong in his UG, taking away the Taboo Noise. And if they’d gotten that one, who knows how many they already had?
Unwilling to trust the Angels and knowing they wouldn’t help anyway, Joshua tracked them down to the universe they were going back to. But, unable to find any Noise in the brief visit, he returned and struck a bargain- he’d go to this other world and keep an eye on things, making sure that the Taboo noise weren’t tearing holes in the fabric of the universe or anything. It was good for them because it got him out of their hair for a while, only allowing him back on game weeks or during a crisis, but in exchange they agreed to let Mr. H stay Shibuya’s Producer. (The only reason they agreed to this was because Joshua pointed out that if Mr. H didn’t do it, one of them would have to.)
So Joshua, after making some preparations for his powers and things heads to this alternate world (without telling Neku that he’s tied to the Game now, haha whoops), and tracks the group the United States. There he ends up meeting Professor Xavier, who, being awesome, knows something’s up and after a little talking brings up his school...
PERSONALITY:
Joshua is, as Neku so eloquently puts it, a ‘jerkface.’ He’s arrogant, condescending, and really doesn’t seem to give a damn about anyone. He is clever, and uses it to manipulate people. Most of the time they don’t realize they’ve been used until it’s over. This is partly because he rarely gives a direct lie- he just knows what conclusions people will jump to if he says the right things. He can play innocent until the final moment, even though most people can tell before that he’s at least up to something.
He has a bit of a superiority complex and he feels like people are pawns to be used or toys to be played with. He places himself- and, indeed, is sometimes placed by others- on a pedestal higher than normal people. He rarely gets attached to people and even less often would admit it, because he’s so cynical about humankind as a whole. Joshua hardly ever shows that he cares, but his special way of doing so is by being an extra-big jerk and teasing the hell out of whoever it is. He does, however, push them them to improve- though hardly anyone ever likes how he does. He forces people to think and grow, which is good for them, but with his normal jerky nature it makes him seem like a horrible person. (Which he is, really, but.) There is a soft streak for anyone who puts up with him long enough, and he is capable of changing when given reason. He’s just pretty content with the way he is.
When he appears in his older form, he’s a little bit better about this- a little. He speaks a bit more formally and has more of a tendency to be polite, but he also distances himself further from people, because it reminds him of his position. For the most part, however, his assholish nature stays intact.
Joshua has a girly appearance, but his personality accents it. He tends to scream ‘gay’ (or at least bisexual) at several points in the game. He has an eye for fashion, he flips his hair, giggles, calls Neku ‘dear,’ likes pink and rainbows, and talks about spending ‘quality time’ with Neku. Yea.
In short, Joshua’s an arrogant asshole with a very, very slight soft spot for the few people he actually likes.
APPEARANCE:
Here, Joshua will be appearing as a man in his early twenties, though the ‘man’ part is a little hard to tell at times because he’s pretty androgynous. He’s fairly tall and has chin length wavy white/blonde hair and very bright purple eyes. When he’s really using his power, his form gets a little fuzzy and he starts to glow.
POWERS:
Being separated from both his dimension and Shibuya, Joshua’s powers have been cut quite a bit. Theoretically, if he were to return to this world’s Shibuya, he’d get a little more of it back, but not the whole amount. The reason he can use a lot of the powers he has here is because he tied them to his cellphone, making him incredibly dependent on having it near him at all times.
As such, some of his powers are not accessible and others are severely capped. For example, even though he could use his power to get here, he cannot return under his own power. He can also not manifest forms of a higher frequency, so no wings, Noise, or small ball of light. No seeing dead people either, since there’s no UG.
Things he can do are as follows. He can use his cellphone as a channeling method for his ‘Player’ powers- such as summoning large objects from seemingly no where to crush people, or beams of light when he’s levitating. His Scanning is limited to people’s immediate thoughts- he can tell that they’re thinking about food, but not their deep, dark secrets. His thoughts are not hidden from people.
This area gets slightly more god-modey and if it’s too much then I’ll cut it even more. He can manipulate the time-space of the area around him, but only up to a foot- and the further out it is, the less likely it is to work. He can also not currently concentrate on several things within this area (like, he could possibly stop one bullet, but not five). His reincarnation powers have also been heavily compromised. He can bring people back, but it takes all his energy and power for a period of time, and he can only do it with people whose soul he would recognize- meaning, people he knows. And it has to be done pretty quickly.
ANYTHING ELSE?: His cellphone has been specially modified to receive text messages from his home dimension, so if he needs to get back he can tell Mr. H to come get him. And so he can still bug the hell out of Neku. He will also keep said cellphone with him at all times, since if he’s separated from it he loses even more of his power. Yay!
(Also, if I ever need to hiatus him, I will probably say that he returns to Shibuya every so often to run a Game/bring people back to life.)