Post by Naoto Shirogane on Nov 23, 2009 23:38:51 GMT -5
~Come Tell Us About Yourself~
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“What I should yearn for…No, what I must strive for isn’t to become a man. It’s to accept myself for who I really am…”
About the Roleplayer
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“What I should yearn for…No, what I must strive for isn’t to become a man. It’s to accept myself for who I really am…”
About the Roleplayer
Nickname: Dro
RP Experience: Couple of months
About the Character
Name: Naoto Shirogane
Age: 16 years old
Anime/Game/OC: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
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Personality: Compared to most people in her age, Naoto is very formal and polite, using refined vocabulary along with sophisticated body language and manners. This comes from her analytical mind, possessing a fierce intelligence that comes with her passion for being a detective. Naoto isn’t flustered easily, assessing each scenario calmly, weighing in every detail in her mind. This could lead to her being somewhat cool and distant to others, shunning and ignoring potential friends or admirers. She even shuns other policemen, preferring to work alone. This mostly comes from her complete dedication into becoming a detective her parents would be proud of. She is absolutely passionate about being a detective, foregoing anything else if it means losing focus on the case. For Naoto, the case is the most important facet. Friends are secondary.
Even so, underneath this veneer is a rather confused girl, trying to claim an identity from a sea of confusion. Before entering the Midnight Channel, she resented two things about her, the facts that she is a child compared to the policemen she works with and that she is female, therefore preventing her to completely be like the detectives she reads in fiction. This makes her extremely conscious of her gender, always embarrassed to show off her feminine side. She covers her female side with gender neutral clothes hiding her figure as well as adopting a deeper voice. Even when pretending to be a boy, Naoto can’t hide from the inescapable truth. Inside, she is still bitter at being treated like a child by the other policemen and insecure at the fact that, no matter what, she will never truly be like those she admired, always held back by what she really is. In the end though, she accepts this side of her, the side that harbors all that anger and bitterness and finds what she was truly seeking for. Joining the Investigation Team, she opens up and becomes friendlier, regaining her passion for investigating cases not for the sake of the Shirogane legacy but because she enjoys it.
History: Naoto lost her parents to an automobile accident when she was young. As a result, she was brought up by her grandfather who was a detective just like her mother and father. Growing up, Naoto read detective novels and aspired to be one just like all the Shirogane who came before her. Over the years, she would help her grandfather in various cases, earning her the nickname ‘Junior Detective’. Yearning to emulate all the ‘cool’ male sleuths prevalent in detective fiction, Naoto began dressing up as a male and lowering her voice to a deeper pitch. At that point, few people had any clue to Naoto’s real gender. Eventually, she gained a favorable reputation while helping her grandfather among the prefecture police. As the murder case plaguing Inaba went nowhere, the prefecture police decided to send in Naoto in order for her to gain experience working in a high-profile murder case such as this one and hopefully bring the case closer to its end. This only serves to annoy the chief detective on the case, the Protagonist’s uncle Ryotaro Dojima.
The Investigation Team first encounters Naoto when shadowing Kanji Tatsumi, thinking that he could very well be the killer’s next victim. Apparently, Naoto had come to the same conclusion, hence her questioning Kanji.
Unfortunately, this only confuses Kanji, thinking that Naoto was coming on to him and he was actually reciprocating, not knowing that Naoto was actually a girl. Naoto also indirectly helps the Investigation Team in digging up clues about Kanji once he became lost inside the Midnight Channel. She tells the Protagonist of her suspicions about Kanji, allowing Teddie to find and save him. During this time, both Naoto and the Investigation Team are somewhat oblivious of each others’ stake in this case.
Later on, Naoto enrolls into Yasogami High School to keep up with her studies and remain close to the investigation. Upon arriving in school, Naoto attracts many admirers from both sexes only to shun and ignore them all. She constantly appears to chastise the Investigation Team for their constant meddling, accusing them of treating this murder case as nothing more than a game played by bored high-schoolers. She also tells them that now the police have a suspect in their sights, obvious red herring Mtsuo Souba, their game was about to end. Rise angrily rebuffs her, claiming that Naoto was the one who’s been treating the investigation like a game. Taken aback, Naoto reluctantly confesses that it was partly the truth, lamenting the fact that detectives are only employed for the duration of the case then simply shunted aside, no longer needed. Once Mitsou was finally arrested, the Investigation Team warms up to Naoto and invites her along into their group, joining them in various activities and being generally accepted as part of the gang. Now that normalcy was somewhat returning to Inaba, it seems like there will finally be some closure.
Of course, Naoto is still unconvinced by Mitsuo’s guilt. Most of her time is spent digging through the case files, to the annoyance of Dojima and the rest of the police department who considers the case closed. Naoto decides to bait the culprit and offer herself up to the killer. To do this, Naoto allowed the local TV station to stage an interview with her, having gathered media attention as ‘The Detective Prince,’ following the pattern set by earlier victims. The ploy works and Naoto is taken by the culprit and thrown into the Midnight Channel. Her Shadow starts appearing in the Midnight Channel, declaring an imminent body alteration procedure that would turn her into an adult male. The Investigation Team hurries and manages to fight their way through Naoto’s dungeon, a secret military base typical of childish Japanese anime. AT the end, they see Naoto confronting her Shadow, looking rather unhurried until her Shadow begins throwing uncomfortable truths at her, slowly breaking through her mask. Naoto’s Shadow begins to bring to light all her insecurities, from her bitterness stemming from her youth compared to the other policemen to the fact that she will never fully become like the detectives in the fiction she read and admired simply because of her gender. The Investigation Team finally realizes that Naoto was in fact a girl, making Naoto even more flustered, losing her composure. Her voice begins to break, turning into a higher pitch as Naoto loses her concentration to her Shadow’s delight. Naoto loses consciousness and her Shadow turns into a robot caricature for the Investigation Team to defeat.
After pacifying Shadow Naoto, the real one awakens and faces her Shadow, back into its original form. Naoto reveals her history and insecurities to the Team, finally coming to terms with her problems, from her perception as a child to her issues when it comes to her gender. Upon pondering over them, Naoto realizes that what she really desired was not to be an adult or even a male but to accept herself for what she is. She will always remain Naoto Shirogane, the latest detective in the Shirogane clan no matter what age or sex she has. This results in her Shadow turning into her Persona, Sukuna-Hikona. After going through all that trauma, Naoto collapses out of exhaustion and is taken by the Investigation Team out of the Midnight Channel and back into the real world.
From here on in, Naoto fully joins the Investigation Team, assisting the party in battle and helping to solve the case. In addition, she also joins in whatever nonsensical activities the team find themselves in, such as the Miss Yasogami Pageant which she inadvertently wins, much to her great embarrassment. Beyond that, Naoto and the Protagonist gets wrapped up in a subplot of their own as a mysterious individual known only as ‘the Phantom Thief’ challenges the Shirogane family by leaving behind memorabilia from Naoto’s childhood. At first, Naoto seemed apathetic but with the Protagonist’s prodding, she becomes more enthusiastic as they become closer towards the identity of the culprit. In the end, it turns out that the ‘Phantom Thief’ was in fact one of the Shirogane family servants who had been tasked to leave an elaborate hunt by Naoto’s grandfather so that she could regain her passion for being a detective. Naoto finds that she now wants to be a detective not to live up to the Shirogane legacy but because that what she loved to do and wanted to be. In the end, the mysterious events of the Midnight Channel along with a certain silver-haired protagonist helped Naoto overcome her inner demons and become a better person for it.
Role: First Year student
Weaknesses: Insecure about her gender: question or prod anything about Naoto and she becomes flustered immediately. Because of what she perceives to be a rather masculine profession, Naoto rarely does anything completely girly and will become embarrassed when pushed in a position to do so. Can be quite cold and distant when meeting new people, especially when her mind is preoccupied with a case of some sort. Naoto isn’t generally the most social of people so first conversations can either have her be extremely polite or incredibly awkward. She is also a workaholic, always prioritizing the work she does first before any other frivolities.
Strengths:Naoto is fiercely intelligent, a result of her ruthless dedication to becoming a true detective. This manifests in her advanced diction and polite manners. As a result, Naoto has a keen, analytical mind able to process facts and details concerned with any situation with ease. She can keep herself quite calm in times of duress and doesn’t always let her emotions completely take over. She is dedicated and hard working, never leaving behind a scrappy job and always willing to take a case to its natural conclusion, even if all the pieces seem to fit. Naoto never settles for the easy answer and always tries to reach out for the truth.
Weapons/Magic: Naoto wields a variety of revolvers but her main source of power is her unique Persona, Sukuna-Hikona. Her Persona specializes in Light and Dark spells that are either overwhelmingly powerful or completely useless depending on the type of enemy fought. It is also capable of delivering a variety of melee strikes along with Almighty spells that no enemy can resist but still costs a lot of power to cast.
How did you come to be at the academy?: During her subsequent investigations into the Midnight Channel and the mysterious TV portals, Naoto stumbled upon the academy and, upon seeing the strange menagerie that was the student body and staff, enrolled with the intent of investigating the place.
Custom Title: The So-Called Detective Prince
[color=Blue]The So-Called Detective Prince[/color]
RP Sample:
Naoto slowly opened her eyes, blinking against the sun streaming through some opening. Groaning, she held up a hand to block the light from her eyes. She felt familiar covers on her and realized that she was on her bed, in her home. The rather inappropriately placed window had always vexed her every morning and hasn’t failed to do so today. Frowning, Naoto pulled off the covers and slunk out of bed, grunting at the effort. Somehow, her limbs felt weighed down and heavy, making the simple act of standing up more than the usual amount of effort. By the time Naoto had slipped out of her pajamas and into her normal day wear, her breath was coming in short gasps and her entire body was shaking. Her eyes glared at the mirror on her closet and saw a disheveled, shivering little girl barely able to stand from exhaustion. Her pale face frowned at the sight and forced herself to stand straighter, locking down her body ramrod straight, hands absentmindedly brushing back locks of hair. Now, with the school uniform on lending an air of professionalism and her trusty officer’s cap on, she looked more like the detective she wanted to be. A small smile crept on her face.
You’re only a child.
“You could say that,” Naoto responded, her smile evaporating. “But I’ve moved on beyond that,” In a flash, vivid memories started racing through her head at the mere thought of those words, of that face first crying childishly then berating her cruelly, stripping away layers she didn’t even realize she had. Her eyes cast downwards at the memory. She felt so tired, as if she had ran twenty marathons and had time to climb a mountain. Why did she feel this way? She could barely lift her arms such was the fatigue that had visited her. Yet, she had done nothing to cause such exhaustion. All she did was crumple on the floor as her other self took over and those others saved her. She couldn’t even save herself from, well, herself. What a weak little thing she was.
She had thought herself smart, coming up with that oh-so brilliant plan to lure the killer out. It had been so obvious that Mitsuo wasn’t the one they were looking for yet the much-vaunted Inaba police wouldn’t believe a word they said. Why would they? They had in their hands a psychotic individual with all the motives and evidence they could want and a chance to finally wrap up a case that had plagued their little countryside town for so long. Why would they want to lengthen the affair once more, further trouble the citizens with a murder case that has gone nowhere? They didn’t want to see the loose ends still out there. All they saw was a child trying to punch above his weight, nosing in on finished business. Of course the real killer was still out there. They just couldn’t be bothered to dig deeper.
Then it all lead to her brilliant ploy.
In all honesty, Naoto certainly couldn’t remember what went through her head when setting herself up as bait. It wasn’t hard arranging an interview with the TV station. Those lackwits would jump at any story that would seem mildly interesting and the idea of a 16 year old ‘Detective Prince’ helping out the beleaguered Inaba police department seemed too juicy for them to pass up. After all, they had ran a story on biker gangs, which ended up being horribly inaccurate and cast a few dark shadows on a certain Kanji Tatsumi. All that had been easy. What she couldn’t remember now was what she had planned if and when the killer had caught her. What was she going to do? Had she been wrapped up in her detective stories that she had completely lost track of reality? Did she really think she could singlehandedly overpower a hardened killer by herself and bring her to justice, much like the hardboiled heroes of her childhood? Her, a slight slip of a girl who could barely face her innermost fears and secrets?
Somehow, looking back now, it all seemed so silly. So childish. Naoto let a smile creep back to her face at the thought.
What’s done is done. Naoto sighed ruefully at the thought but she knew that dwelling in the past would make her lose sight of the future. And there was still a great deal of work to do. The killer, whoever he was, is still out there, waiting to claim another victim. The case was still on and Naoto couldn’t just stand in her room, wallowing in self-pity. She had to be stronger than that. The Midnight Channel, the Shadows that populate it, the past events have thrown up so much bewildering new information that it was getting hard even for her to keep it all in her head. This case had turned into the supernatural, a realm completely unknown to Naoto. She needed more information and only her friends could provide her with that.
Friends…..
For a moment, Naoto felt another shiver go through her body. This time however, it wasn’t one of fatigue or fear. It was one of power and warmth. She let a hand curl up against her chest, letting the feeling flow through her veins, rejuvenating every cell, every weak tissue, and every tired muscle. Her eyes closed as she let that wondrous feeling overtake her body. “Persona,” she murmured, feeling better than she could’ve hoped for. She could’ve stood there forever, letting the world pass by as long as she could feel what she was feeling right now. She could, if she wanted to. Instead, she opened her eyes and saw the determination behind them on her mirror. Naoto saw a person, man or woman, determined to go out into the world and do her best. She didn’t know if who she saw the great detective she had always wanted to be. But it was certainly closer than it had been before. Naoto adjusted her cap with a small smile and exited her room, feeling more confident than ever before.
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