app: second city (in progress)
[OOC Information]
Name: Random
Age: 19
AIM / E-mail / LiveJournal / Plurk: dishonor4honor / random_idiot_v2@yahoo.com / okroginator / random_idiot (I spend a lot of time on Plurk, so it's the most likely place to snag me quickly.)
What characters do you play here already, if any? Nada.
[IC Information]
Character Name: Kiryuu Yoshiya, nicknamed and most commonly called "Joshua."
Series: The World Ends With You, taken post-game
Gender: Joshua is biologically male when downgraded/corporeal. He primarily identifies as male, as well, but with Josh it's difficult to say if this is really important to him. He frequently flirts with Neku to make him uncomfortable - whether or not he means it is a question that may never be answered. It's possible that human sexuality is entirely unimportant to him, or a faintly remembered curiosity. This sets him up for some hilarious lines, though.
tl;dr: male-ish
Age:It is difficult to say how old Joshua is, because he is not, strictly speaking, entirely human. It is implied that he once was human, and that's what I am operating on, but it's never stated how old Joshua is, or how old he was when he became the Composer, if he can even be held to concepts like "age" anymore. When he gave up a large portion of his power to descend into the Underground during the game, he appeared as a fifteen-year-old boy, and that's how Neku (and the player) saw him for the vast majority of the game. Once or twice in cutscenes, we see a representation of Josh as the Composer, in which he appears a bit older (twenties? thirties?), but also obscured by white light, lens flare/glow, and faint feather-like halo effects, so again, difficult to say. Suffice it to say that though he might not be as chronologically "old" as some of the other Reapers (according to my headcanon), age itself is not really applicable as a concept to him.
tl;dr: appears fifteen, hell if anyone knows his real age /shrug
Species: A being from a higher plane. In TWEWY canon, there is no biological difference between humans and beings of the higher planes, merely more of a structural difference, a difference of placement, if you will. Joshua was once human, but now is something more pure, more refined. The closest word in the English language might be "angel," even though he is one step below the "Angels" of TWEWY canon. He cannot appear in this plane as anything other than human, however; he must give up a great chunk of his power just to get down here. So: biologically human body, mentally/structurally Other.
Appearance: When Joshua is human, he appears as a young boy, fifteen to sixteen years of age. He's somewhat androgynously pretty, short-ish, thin, fragile-looking, with medium-length, messy silver-gray hair. His eyes are a somewhat ambiguous color that hovers around grayish-blue (more gray than blue). Blue jeans, light blue polo shirt that looks about a size too large, and generic white sneakers. He also has a frilly umbrella; sadly, he did not bring it to Second City.
Personality: Joshua is, simply put, kind of a jerk. He enjoys teasing people, particularly Neku. Sometimes he does it to distract them from figuring out that he is much more than he seems (in-game example: he addresses Neku by name twice before they are actually introduced, but Neku doesn't notice because he's too irritated by Josh's manner); sometimes he does it to probe for information; sometimes he does it just to see how they will react. He seems to greatly enjoy getting a rise out of people.
Josh doesn't only ever tease people, though; sometimes, he will hold very deep conversations with them. He loves to discuss the nature of humanity, especially the doomed nature of humanity. Neku's positive responses to some of his more misanthropic comments seem to truly surprise him. Above all, Josh usually seems driven by a buried curiosity in his dealings with other people. It's possible he misses human interactions: after the events of the game, it's strongly hinted that he feels something like sadness for the first time in a long time when Neku chooses reincarnation over possible ascension - in other words, chooses his life and friends over Joshua. Of course, this is to be expected, considering how Josh treated him over the course of the game, and Mr. Hanekoma points this out to him in the bonus movie (obtainable with 100% completion).
Though Joshua's faith in humanity has shrunk greatly over the course of his time as Composer, by the end of his week with Neku, it already seems to be rebuilding itself. Even though he didn't die when he intercepted Minamimoto's Level i Flare, he still could have, or he might have stranded himself when using his depleted power to teleport to another plane (in which case he might never have made it back to the Realground (our world) and the entire order of the Game and Shibuya could have destabilized or otherwise required the Angels' intervention, which would not have gone well at all). The fact that he did so to save Neku, even if it was based on a personal stake in Neku's survival, says something. In the end, Joshua chooses to spare Shibuya after Neku shows him that it's never too late to change oneself for the better; if anything, this most of all shows that Josh has at least regained some of his faith in humanity to better itself.
It's heavily implied that deep down, Joshua is extremely lonely. Mr. Hanekoma told Neku that Josh was always alone and distanced from others in life because of his "special abilities;" becoming Composer certainly would do nothing to alleviate that. The only person he truly trusted was Mr. Hanekoma himself, before Shibuya's game - after that, he seems to have extended that same attachment to Neku, though it's difficult to say if Neku reciprocates.
History: Much of Joshua's true history is either given to us in-game by unreliable narrators (Mr. Hanekoma and Joshua himself), or detailed in the Secret Reports - again, by an unreliable narrator (Hanekoma). It's difficult to say how much is strictly true, how much is "kind of true," and how much is total bullshit. Therefore, my backstory for Josh is pretty reliant on headcanon, so I will do my best to indicate what is truly canonical and what is built on canonical implications.
[ In order to understand Joshua's backstory, a little information on the canon: the plot of The World Ends With You revolves around the Reaper's Game, a competition that lasts seven days in which the dead participate to (theoretically) win their lives back. It pits the Players, who battle negative manifestations known as Noise, against Reapers, who control the Noise and create challenges for the Players. If the Players fail their challenges, they are "erased" permanently. (It is revealed in the Secret Reports that "erasure" does not mean a total cessation of existence, for what that is worth.)
At the end of the week, the Players that have survived have several options: they can choose to be brought back to life, to join the Reapers, to play the Game again, or to be voluntarily erased. In cases of illegal conduct by Players, they will be unconditionally erased, unless special circumstances allow them to choose to play the Game again. In very rare cases, a Player may exhibit such talent and strength of Soul that they can choose to ascend to a higher plane of existence. (One can normally achieve ascension by becoming a Reaper and slowly working up through the ranks, hence the motivation to become a Reaper in the first place.)
The chain of command goes thus: Support Reapers (bottom rung), Harrier Reapers, Officers, Game Master (the selected hands-on administrator of that week's Game), the Conductor (the only Reaper permitted to contact the Composer), the Composer (leader of the Reapers and the administrator of the entire Game), the Producer (referee of the Game and liaison between the Composer and the Angels), and finally, the Angels at the top, who oversee all facets of existence, which include the Game. The primary function of the Game is to find Players with a great deal of Soul and Imagination, implied to be the creative and driving forces of TWEWY's universe, and give them a second chance at life, a chance to spread their Imagination and influence other's lives for the better. It is also a recruitment tool for the Reaper chain of command, which, as stated, eventually ends with admission to the Angels, if one makes it that far without being erased in the meantime. ]
It's stated by Mr. Hanekoma (the game's mentor figure, later revealed to be the Producer and a Fallen Angel at that) that Josh was able to see the Underground since he was very young - that is, he was able to see the spirits of the dead, and the Reapers who maintain the Game. At first, it seems as though this is all there is to Joshua's backstory: that he knew about the Game for a long time and that's why he's so bad with relating to people. A bit later in the game, Joshua is accused of being an illegal Player - a living person who somehow penetrated the Underground, whose greater life force would afford him more power in a lower plane.
In reality, during that entire time, Joshua was actually the Composer himself: the administrator of the Game, the ruler of the Underground, the leader of the Reapers, and the very person in charge of giving the winning Players their lives back. Before the Game central to TWEWY's plot began, Joshua had become disillusioned with the state of Shibuya, and decided to erase it from existence. His Conductor, Megumi Kitaniji, begged him to reconsider, and asked that Shibuya be given a second chance if he could prove it could be saved. Joshua accepted his challenge, gave him a time limit of one month, and agreed to "downtune his vibe" (in other words, suppress his powers and descend to the lower planes) and select a proxy to represent his interests in Kitaniji's Game.
For his proxy, Joshua selected the game's protagonist, Neku Sakuraba, partly for his huge reserves of Soul and partly because his emotional issues would make him easy to unwittingly manipulate (this last is never outright stated, but implied). In this case, "selected" means "shot him to death in the street," since Neku obviously couldn't play the Game unless he was already dead.
Kitaniji's Game extended for three weeks, three Games back-to-back-to-back. Having two Games two weeks in a row was an uncommon occurrence only remembered by the senior Reapers in the game; three in a row was utterly unheard of. In the second week, after Neku lost his original partner, Joshua teamed up with Neku to check on his progress, observe the Game firsthand, and help him survive the week. He was pleased to discover his proxy was developing more quickly than even he predicted, though Neku's additional emotional and spiritual growth surprised him a little. At the end of the week, they were confronted by a rogue Reaper, Sho Minanimoto, who had been meddling in powers that shouldn't have been used, with the help of an unknown Fallen Angel (well, unknown to them; it was actually Mr. Hanekoma). Joshua pushed Neku out of the way of an attack that would have erased him and appeared to take the brunt of the attack, vanishing before Neku's eyes.
In actuality, Joshua used as much power as he could muster in his downgraded state and diverted the attack into another plane of existence, escaping to an alternate universe as he did so. He was stuck in that alternate plane, the universe of the post-game episode "Another Day," until Mr. Hanekoma was able to contact and help him.
Joshua returned for the final confrontation, revealing to Neku that he was the Composer all along, and declaring one final challenge. He and Neku would each take a gun and point it at the other. After a countdown of five seconds, the first to pull the trigger and kill the other would win, and decide the fate of Shibuya. When he finishes counting, Neku prepares to shoot - but lowers his gun, choosing to "trust his partner" even in the face of betrayal and death. Joshua appears to shoot him, but Neku's sacrifice and redemption made him see that if even Neku could change himself for the better, then Shibuya could be redeemed and saved in much the same manner. The epilogue of the game reveals that he gives Neku and the other three protagonists their second chances at life, though he himself cannot be with them any longer.
Hanekoma's story of Josh's childhood is never disproven or refuted despite the reveal that Joshua was the Composer all along. Since whoever kills the Composer must become the new Composer in hir place, it is plausible that Joshua was once an extraordinarily gifted human, who killed and replaced the previous Composer once he reached the Underground and played in the Game; however, it is never outright stated whether Joshua was the original Composer or not. Both Hanekoma and Joshua have outright lied in-game, so anything they say should be treated as suspect, particularly things that contradict themselves. For my headcanon of Josh, I play him as though he was once human before being the Composer, a long time ago, but has long since forgotten his own humanity, which would explain his personality quirks.
Supernatural Abilities: In his world, Joshua is something of a Physical God in his own right. He possesses sufficient Imagination to literally remake reality as he sees fit, within certain parameters. When fighting in battle, his original skill set involves summoning (or simply creating, it's never explicit which) large, heavy objects that crush his enemies when dropped from above. After shit starts to get serious in-game, he upgrades to levitating in midair while frying his enemies with beams of holy light. YES WE'RE SERIOUS. (The fandom has termed them "Jesus Beams.") In the Realground, Joshua can also stop bullets inches from his face, Neo-style. Really.
In addition to the physical things he can do, Joshua can see through the planes. he has the ability, similar to a wizard's Sight, to look at something and see it as it truly appears: its essence, its Soul. Something between telepathy and soulgazing, in short. Unlike with a wizard, Joshua has no need to turn this off - it's simply the way he sees. He's in no danger of his mind rupturing from the information overload; he has long since lost that particular human weakness.
Supernatural Weaknesses: Joshua's powers are limited by the frequency to which he is tuned (i.e., what plane he's on). He gives up a lot of his powers to descend to the Realground (although this still leaves him with a lot to draw on, as Minamimoto found out, to his chagrin). He also has to play by the rules set in place by the Angels - he can't just come to the RG for any reason, nor can he change the rules of the Game. (He can change the structure of the Game, but not the purpose, and he must play by the rules and deals he creates.) In reality, as the Composer, Josh is best compared to something of a middle management position - he oversees a great deal of things, but the true power, the power of the Angels, is still above him, and he is subject to it.
He would also be bound by the rules of whatever plane he happened to travel to, which would severely limit his powers to conform to Second City. Like many supernatural beings even in Dresden Files canon, Joshua is bound by the power of rules, oaths, laws, and structures. In short, though Joshua is possessed of formidable powers, he is by no means utterly omnipotent.
Chicago-specific weaknesses: Joshua has access to all but the most top-tier of his abilities; however, to use them tires him greatly, much more so than they would back home. The more Imagination any ability would require (i.e. tossing a vending machine versus frying someone with holy light), the more it tires him. I'm going to say it would take him twelve to sixteen hours to recover from using high-level telekinesis, and a full day for light-based abilities. Also, no clairvoyance whatsoever. It's just a pain.
I am also going to severely limit the extent of Joshua's ability to see and read people's souls, and there will be a permissions post for this. It will be off by default, and he will need to exert effort to make it turn on. He also won't be able to leave it on for extended periods of time.
Natural Abilities: Anything the average human can do, Joshua can also do when he's corporeal. He's also knows his way around a gun pretty handily. On a more abstract level, Joshua is extremely perceptive. He often knows exactly what to say to hit someone's vulnerabilities, without looking like he cares in any way at all. He is very smart, and very focused on his goals, whatever they happen to be at the time. Joshua reads people very well, for someone no longer quite so human himself.
Possessions: Only his celestial cell phone. It will, of course, quit working, much to Joshua's dismay and irritation. If/when it regains power, it will no longer have the ability to track high levels of Soul or take photos of the past - in short, it will be roughly useless to Josh.
First-person POV journal sample:
Video
[ A young man, gray eyes curious, studies the screen intently for a moment. He is good-looking, in an ambiguous way: soft lips, perfect skin, long eyelashes, if one is into the faint androgyny thing. After a moment, he smiles, an unreadable interest flashing in his eyes. ]
Interesting. Very, very interesting. It seems someone is running a Game with very different rules here.
[ He runs a hand over his mouth for a moment, thinking. ]
I was aware they weren't happy with the last Game I ran, but I didn't think they'd overlook an infraction of this magnitude just to teach me a lesson. This isn't even my city, you realize?
[ That smile, again: knowing and somehow dangerous. ]
I wonder if I might speak to your Producer? I'm sure we can work something out.
Third-person POV rp sample:
There’s always something just so exciting about the Realground, the way a drum solo or crowd chant is exciting. The RG is the base (the bass [the basis]), the low-tone rhythm that sends ripples up the higher frequencies and mirrors them in turn. There are lower frequencies than the RG, but they’re so wideband that they can lose coherency in places, and that’s where the Noise really do become a problem. Less so here.
Joshua inhales deeply and smiles. Oh, today. Today is going to be a wonderful day. Today is the last day before the Game begins, and oh what a Game it is going to be. Joshua had forgotten exactly how exhilarating the element of surprise can actually be; it’s been years since he’s had to downtune his vibe low enough to lose his supertemporal vision. Clairvoyance - a pittance to pay in exchange for the delicious thrill of the unknown, shaking and shivering with the command of the Now. If the Angels didn’t prohibit or restrict nearly everything interesting under the sun, Joshua might do this more often.
There is a gun tucked into the back waistband of his jeans, a grin on his face, and for once, Joshua has no idea how this is all going to turn out, especially if that Reaper shows up. But for now, there is nothing to do but watch and wait for him to arrive, here in Udagawa’s back alleys. He’ll come, of course; he has been here for the past three days, same time, same place. There is no way he won’t come.
And, right on cue. There is a boy walking this way now, jumping guard rails and ducking into the alley from the street, one hand to his headphones. He glances back they way he came to check if he’s been followed and, satisfied with the answer, walks over to the mural. Joshua sees this all from his vantage point around the corner and does not rush out just yet. It isn’t quite the right time, the right flavor of moment for this just yet. Besides, the young man is fascinating to watch. Sakuraba Neku. He is lost in thought, gazing up at CAT’s mural with quasi-religious awe.
Not that he’s even aware of the power invested in this particular piece of street art. It shimmers violet in the air around them right now, humming with the singular intensity of strings or double-reed woodwinds. The effect is something like a calming breath, a slowing, the unexpected discovery of something small and beautiful during the insanity of the everyday mundanity - rippling in the higher frequencies like a flag twitching in a late summer breeze. Neku has no idea, of course; the only sign that any of this is taking effect is the light in Neku’s eyes as he admires the mural. His Soul, visible to Joshua in several shapes on several planes, responds like a flower opening to sunlight.
CAT, one Hanekoma Sanae, imprints all of his art with the same two messages. The first, enjoy the moment more, is his persona’s personal motto. The second is more subtle; it builds with every piece he creates, an entire string concerto beginning with the contrabass all the way up to the violins, glimmering like gold filigree above the bustle of Shibuya:
(gather.)
It’s so finely woven that it would take someone with a great deal of Soul to sense it, making CAT’s objective simple: to seek out and concentrate only those with great reserves of Soul and Imagination in his home town; “on his turf,” so to speak. This out-of-the-way piece hasn’t attracted much attention so far, just a few strays wondering from the street every once in a while, maybe, but nothing special. Nothing noteworthy.
Except this boy.
He is everything special.
Name: Random
Age: 19
AIM / E-mail / LiveJournal / Plurk: dishonor4honor / random_idiot_v2@yahoo.com / okroginator / random_idiot (I spend a lot of time on Plurk, so it's the most likely place to snag me quickly.)
What characters do you play here already, if any? Nada.
[IC Information]
Character Name: Kiryuu Yoshiya, nicknamed and most commonly called "Joshua."
Series: The World Ends With You, taken post-game
Gender: Joshua is biologically male when downgraded/corporeal. He primarily identifies as male, as well, but with Josh it's difficult to say if this is really important to him. He frequently flirts with Neku to make him uncomfortable - whether or not he means it is a question that may never be answered. It's possible that human sexuality is entirely unimportant to him, or a faintly remembered curiosity. This sets him up for some hilarious lines, though.
tl;dr: male-ish
Age:It is difficult to say how old Joshua is, because he is not, strictly speaking, entirely human. It is implied that he once was human, and that's what I am operating on, but it's never stated how old Joshua is, or how old he was when he became the Composer, if he can even be held to concepts like "age" anymore. When he gave up a large portion of his power to descend into the Underground during the game, he appeared as a fifteen-year-old boy, and that's how Neku (and the player) saw him for the vast majority of the game. Once or twice in cutscenes, we see a representation of Josh as the Composer, in which he appears a bit older (twenties? thirties?), but also obscured by white light, lens flare/glow, and faint feather-like halo effects, so again, difficult to say. Suffice it to say that though he might not be as chronologically "old" as some of the other Reapers (according to my headcanon), age itself is not really applicable as a concept to him.
tl;dr: appears fifteen, hell if anyone knows his real age /shrug
Species: A being from a higher plane. In TWEWY canon, there is no biological difference between humans and beings of the higher planes, merely more of a structural difference, a difference of placement, if you will. Joshua was once human, but now is something more pure, more refined. The closest word in the English language might be "angel," even though he is one step below the "Angels" of TWEWY canon. He cannot appear in this plane as anything other than human, however; he must give up a great chunk of his power just to get down here. So: biologically human body, mentally/structurally Other.
Appearance: When Joshua is human, he appears as a young boy, fifteen to sixteen years of age. He's somewhat androgynously pretty, short-ish, thin, fragile-looking, with medium-length, messy silver-gray hair. His eyes are a somewhat ambiguous color that hovers around grayish-blue (more gray than blue). Blue jeans, light blue polo shirt that looks about a size too large, and generic white sneakers. He also has a frilly umbrella; sadly, he did not bring it to Second City.
Personality: Joshua is, simply put, kind of a jerk. He enjoys teasing people, particularly Neku. Sometimes he does it to distract them from figuring out that he is much more than he seems (in-game example: he addresses Neku by name twice before they are actually introduced, but Neku doesn't notice because he's too irritated by Josh's manner); sometimes he does it to probe for information; sometimes he does it just to see how they will react. He seems to greatly enjoy getting a rise out of people.
Josh doesn't only ever tease people, though; sometimes, he will hold very deep conversations with them. He loves to discuss the nature of humanity, especially the doomed nature of humanity. Neku's positive responses to some of his more misanthropic comments seem to truly surprise him. Above all, Josh usually seems driven by a buried curiosity in his dealings with other people. It's possible he misses human interactions: after the events of the game, it's strongly hinted that he feels something like sadness for the first time in a long time when Neku chooses reincarnation over possible ascension - in other words, chooses his life and friends over Joshua. Of course, this is to be expected, considering how Josh treated him over the course of the game, and Mr. Hanekoma points this out to him in the bonus movie (obtainable with 100% completion).
Though Joshua's faith in humanity has shrunk greatly over the course of his time as Composer, by the end of his week with Neku, it already seems to be rebuilding itself. Even though he didn't die when he intercepted Minamimoto's Level i Flare, he still could have, or he might have stranded himself when using his depleted power to teleport to another plane (in which case he might never have made it back to the Realground (our world) and the entire order of the Game and Shibuya could have destabilized or otherwise required the Angels' intervention, which would not have gone well at all). The fact that he did so to save Neku, even if it was based on a personal stake in Neku's survival, says something. In the end, Joshua chooses to spare Shibuya after Neku shows him that it's never too late to change oneself for the better; if anything, this most of all shows that Josh has at least regained some of his faith in humanity to better itself.
It's heavily implied that deep down, Joshua is extremely lonely. Mr. Hanekoma told Neku that Josh was always alone and distanced from others in life because of his "special abilities;" becoming Composer certainly would do nothing to alleviate that. The only person he truly trusted was Mr. Hanekoma himself, before Shibuya's game - after that, he seems to have extended that same attachment to Neku, though it's difficult to say if Neku reciprocates.
History: Much of Joshua's true history is either given to us in-game by unreliable narrators (Mr. Hanekoma and Joshua himself), or detailed in the Secret Reports - again, by an unreliable narrator (Hanekoma). It's difficult to say how much is strictly true, how much is "kind of true," and how much is total bullshit. Therefore, my backstory for Josh is pretty reliant on headcanon, so I will do my best to indicate what is truly canonical and what is built on canonical implications.
[ In order to understand Joshua's backstory, a little information on the canon: the plot of The World Ends With You revolves around the Reaper's Game, a competition that lasts seven days in which the dead participate to (theoretically) win their lives back. It pits the Players, who battle negative manifestations known as Noise, against Reapers, who control the Noise and create challenges for the Players. If the Players fail their challenges, they are "erased" permanently. (It is revealed in the Secret Reports that "erasure" does not mean a total cessation of existence, for what that is worth.)
At the end of the week, the Players that have survived have several options: they can choose to be brought back to life, to join the Reapers, to play the Game again, or to be voluntarily erased. In cases of illegal conduct by Players, they will be unconditionally erased, unless special circumstances allow them to choose to play the Game again. In very rare cases, a Player may exhibit such talent and strength of Soul that they can choose to ascend to a higher plane of existence. (One can normally achieve ascension by becoming a Reaper and slowly working up through the ranks, hence the motivation to become a Reaper in the first place.)
The chain of command goes thus: Support Reapers (bottom rung), Harrier Reapers, Officers, Game Master (the selected hands-on administrator of that week's Game), the Conductor (the only Reaper permitted to contact the Composer), the Composer (leader of the Reapers and the administrator of the entire Game), the Producer (referee of the Game and liaison between the Composer and the Angels), and finally, the Angels at the top, who oversee all facets of existence, which include the Game. The primary function of the Game is to find Players with a great deal of Soul and Imagination, implied to be the creative and driving forces of TWEWY's universe, and give them a second chance at life, a chance to spread their Imagination and influence other's lives for the better. It is also a recruitment tool for the Reaper chain of command, which, as stated, eventually ends with admission to the Angels, if one makes it that far without being erased in the meantime. ]
It's stated by Mr. Hanekoma (the game's mentor figure, later revealed to be the Producer and a Fallen Angel at that) that Josh was able to see the Underground since he was very young - that is, he was able to see the spirits of the dead, and the Reapers who maintain the Game. At first, it seems as though this is all there is to Joshua's backstory: that he knew about the Game for a long time and that's why he's so bad with relating to people. A bit later in the game, Joshua is accused of being an illegal Player - a living person who somehow penetrated the Underground, whose greater life force would afford him more power in a lower plane.
In reality, during that entire time, Joshua was actually the Composer himself: the administrator of the Game, the ruler of the Underground, the leader of the Reapers, and the very person in charge of giving the winning Players their lives back. Before the Game central to TWEWY's plot began, Joshua had become disillusioned with the state of Shibuya, and decided to erase it from existence. His Conductor, Megumi Kitaniji, begged him to reconsider, and asked that Shibuya be given a second chance if he could prove it could be saved. Joshua accepted his challenge, gave him a time limit of one month, and agreed to "downtune his vibe" (in other words, suppress his powers and descend to the lower planes) and select a proxy to represent his interests in Kitaniji's Game.
For his proxy, Joshua selected the game's protagonist, Neku Sakuraba, partly for his huge reserves of Soul and partly because his emotional issues would make him easy to unwittingly manipulate (this last is never outright stated, but implied). In this case, "selected" means "shot him to death in the street," since Neku obviously couldn't play the Game unless he was already dead.
Kitaniji's Game extended for three weeks, three Games back-to-back-to-back. Having two Games two weeks in a row was an uncommon occurrence only remembered by the senior Reapers in the game; three in a row was utterly unheard of. In the second week, after Neku lost his original partner, Joshua teamed up with Neku to check on his progress, observe the Game firsthand, and help him survive the week. He was pleased to discover his proxy was developing more quickly than even he predicted, though Neku's additional emotional and spiritual growth surprised him a little. At the end of the week, they were confronted by a rogue Reaper, Sho Minanimoto, who had been meddling in powers that shouldn't have been used, with the help of an unknown Fallen Angel (well, unknown to them; it was actually Mr. Hanekoma). Joshua pushed Neku out of the way of an attack that would have erased him and appeared to take the brunt of the attack, vanishing before Neku's eyes.
In actuality, Joshua used as much power as he could muster in his downgraded state and diverted the attack into another plane of existence, escaping to an alternate universe as he did so. He was stuck in that alternate plane, the universe of the post-game episode "Another Day," until Mr. Hanekoma was able to contact and help him.
Joshua returned for the final confrontation, revealing to Neku that he was the Composer all along, and declaring one final challenge. He and Neku would each take a gun and point it at the other. After a countdown of five seconds, the first to pull the trigger and kill the other would win, and decide the fate of Shibuya. When he finishes counting, Neku prepares to shoot - but lowers his gun, choosing to "trust his partner" even in the face of betrayal and death. Joshua appears to shoot him, but Neku's sacrifice and redemption made him see that if even Neku could change himself for the better, then Shibuya could be redeemed and saved in much the same manner. The epilogue of the game reveals that he gives Neku and the other three protagonists their second chances at life, though he himself cannot be with them any longer.
Hanekoma's story of Josh's childhood is never disproven or refuted despite the reveal that Joshua was the Composer all along. Since whoever kills the Composer must become the new Composer in hir place, it is plausible that Joshua was once an extraordinarily gifted human, who killed and replaced the previous Composer once he reached the Underground and played in the Game; however, it is never outright stated whether Joshua was the original Composer or not. Both Hanekoma and Joshua have outright lied in-game, so anything they say should be treated as suspect, particularly things that contradict themselves. For my headcanon of Josh, I play him as though he was once human before being the Composer, a long time ago, but has long since forgotten his own humanity, which would explain his personality quirks.
Supernatural Abilities: In his world, Joshua is something of a Physical God in his own right. He possesses sufficient Imagination to literally remake reality as he sees fit, within certain parameters. When fighting in battle, his original skill set involves summoning (or simply creating, it's never explicit which) large, heavy objects that crush his enemies when dropped from above. After shit starts to get serious in-game, he upgrades to levitating in midair while frying his enemies with beams of holy light. YES WE'RE SERIOUS. (The fandom has termed them "Jesus Beams.") In the Realground, Joshua can also stop bullets inches from his face, Neo-style. Really.
In addition to the physical things he can do, Joshua can see through the planes. he has the ability, similar to a wizard's Sight, to look at something and see it as it truly appears: its essence, its Soul. Something between telepathy and soulgazing, in short. Unlike with a wizard, Joshua has no need to turn this off - it's simply the way he sees. He's in no danger of his mind rupturing from the information overload; he has long since lost that particular human weakness.
Supernatural Weaknesses: Joshua's powers are limited by the frequency to which he is tuned (i.e., what plane he's on). He gives up a lot of his powers to descend to the Realground (although this still leaves him with a lot to draw on, as Minamimoto found out, to his chagrin). He also has to play by the rules set in place by the Angels - he can't just come to the RG for any reason, nor can he change the rules of the Game. (He can change the structure of the Game, but not the purpose, and he must play by the rules and deals he creates.) In reality, as the Composer, Josh is best compared to something of a middle management position - he oversees a great deal of things, but the true power, the power of the Angels, is still above him, and he is subject to it.
He would also be bound by the rules of whatever plane he happened to travel to, which would severely limit his powers to conform to Second City. Like many supernatural beings even in Dresden Files canon, Joshua is bound by the power of rules, oaths, laws, and structures. In short, though Joshua is possessed of formidable powers, he is by no means utterly omnipotent.
Chicago-specific weaknesses: Joshua has access to all but the most top-tier of his abilities; however, to use them tires him greatly, much more so than they would back home. The more Imagination any ability would require (i.e. tossing a vending machine versus frying someone with holy light), the more it tires him. I'm going to say it would take him twelve to sixteen hours to recover from using high-level telekinesis, and a full day for light-based abilities. Also, no clairvoyance whatsoever. It's just a pain.
I am also going to severely limit the extent of Joshua's ability to see and read people's souls, and there will be a permissions post for this. It will be off by default, and he will need to exert effort to make it turn on. He also won't be able to leave it on for extended periods of time.
Natural Abilities: Anything the average human can do, Joshua can also do when he's corporeal. He's also knows his way around a gun pretty handily. On a more abstract level, Joshua is extremely perceptive. He often knows exactly what to say to hit someone's vulnerabilities, without looking like he cares in any way at all. He is very smart, and very focused on his goals, whatever they happen to be at the time. Joshua reads people very well, for someone no longer quite so human himself.
Possessions: Only his celestial cell phone. It will, of course, quit working, much to Joshua's dismay and irritation. If/when it regains power, it will no longer have the ability to track high levels of Soul or take photos of the past - in short, it will be roughly useless to Josh.
First-person POV journal sample:
Video
[ A young man, gray eyes curious, studies the screen intently for a moment. He is good-looking, in an ambiguous way: soft lips, perfect skin, long eyelashes, if one is into the faint androgyny thing. After a moment, he smiles, an unreadable interest flashing in his eyes. ]
Interesting. Very, very interesting. It seems someone is running a Game with very different rules here.
[ He runs a hand over his mouth for a moment, thinking. ]
I was aware they weren't happy with the last Game I ran, but I didn't think they'd overlook an infraction of this magnitude just to teach me a lesson. This isn't even my city, you realize?
[ That smile, again: knowing and somehow dangerous. ]
I wonder if I might speak to your Producer? I'm sure we can work something out.
Third-person POV rp sample:
There’s always something just so exciting about the Realground, the way a drum solo or crowd chant is exciting. The RG is the base (the bass [the basis]), the low-tone rhythm that sends ripples up the higher frequencies and mirrors them in turn. There are lower frequencies than the RG, but they’re so wideband that they can lose coherency in places, and that’s where the Noise really do become a problem. Less so here.
Joshua inhales deeply and smiles. Oh, today. Today is going to be a wonderful day. Today is the last day before the Game begins, and oh what a Game it is going to be. Joshua had forgotten exactly how exhilarating the element of surprise can actually be; it’s been years since he’s had to downtune his vibe low enough to lose his supertemporal vision. Clairvoyance - a pittance to pay in exchange for the delicious thrill of the unknown, shaking and shivering with the command of the Now. If the Angels didn’t prohibit or restrict nearly everything interesting under the sun, Joshua might do this more often.
There is a gun tucked into the back waistband of his jeans, a grin on his face, and for once, Joshua has no idea how this is all going to turn out, especially if that Reaper shows up. But for now, there is nothing to do but watch and wait for him to arrive, here in Udagawa’s back alleys. He’ll come, of course; he has been here for the past three days, same time, same place. There is no way he won’t come.
And, right on cue. There is a boy walking this way now, jumping guard rails and ducking into the alley from the street, one hand to his headphones. He glances back they way he came to check if he’s been followed and, satisfied with the answer, walks over to the mural. Joshua sees this all from his vantage point around the corner and does not rush out just yet. It isn’t quite the right time, the right flavor of moment for this just yet. Besides, the young man is fascinating to watch. Sakuraba Neku. He is lost in thought, gazing up at CAT’s mural with quasi-religious awe.
Not that he’s even aware of the power invested in this particular piece of street art. It shimmers violet in the air around them right now, humming with the singular intensity of strings or double-reed woodwinds. The effect is something like a calming breath, a slowing, the unexpected discovery of something small and beautiful during the insanity of the everyday mundanity - rippling in the higher frequencies like a flag twitching in a late summer breeze. Neku has no idea, of course; the only sign that any of this is taking effect is the light in Neku’s eyes as he admires the mural. His Soul, visible to Joshua in several shapes on several planes, responds like a flower opening to sunlight.
CAT, one Hanekoma Sanae, imprints all of his art with the same two messages. The first, enjoy the moment more, is his persona’s personal motto. The second is more subtle; it builds with every piece he creates, an entire string concerto beginning with the contrabass all the way up to the violins, glimmering like gold filigree above the bustle of Shibuya:
(gather.)
It’s so finely woven that it would take someone with a great deal of Soul to sense it, making CAT’s objective simple: to seek out and concentrate only those with great reserves of Soul and Imagination in his home town; “on his turf,” so to speak. This out-of-the-way piece hasn’t attracted much attention so far, just a few strays wondering from the street every once in a while, maybe, but nothing special. Nothing noteworthy.
Except this boy.
He is everything special.