APP
Name: Laura
Personal LJ: tableflips
Contact Info: aim: jesus beams
Other Characters Played: n/a
Preferred Housing: n/a
Character Name: Neku Sakuraba
Character Series: The World Ends With You
Character Age: 15
Background: wikia; he will be post-game!
Personality: Neku begins as the most antisocial person to ever exist; he is terse, downright rude, and utterly convinced that all he needs in life is himself. He only puts up with other people if they're useful to him, and refuses to let them get close to him. He's constantly irritated and believes that everyone else is beneath him and either stupid, not worth his time, or both. This starts to change when he wakes up in the UG version of Shibuya, mostly because he is forced to be constantly around another person or he'll be erased. Shiki draws him out of his shell often by force, bugging him until he reacts with more than a blank stare or a snappy retort, and is the first cause of his becoming a nicer person.
As time goes on, he slowly becomes more and more open to the ideas of friendship, trusting people, and being more open. He shows sympathy towards his friends, although he's pretty awkward about it, and slowly begins to become much less irritable and rude and is actually a decent guy to be around. Neku is fiercely loyal and has a tendency to get way too attached to the people he does consider friends, for one reason or another (canon hints that he may have had a friend whose death he blames himself for).
Mid-canon, he's still kind of in the transition period between thinking that other people/society do nothing but force their values on him and make him feel useless, and actually appreciating and enjoying his friendships/the world at large. As such, he's incredibly shaky on the interpersonal relations front; on the one hand, he really values his friends and is ridiculously loyal to them to the point of blaming himself for everything bad that happens to them, and on the other hand, he still takes a long time to actually deem any given person worthy of his trust/time.
By the end of the game he kind of goes through a lot of crap. After the end of his second week, he is faced with the knowledge that the person he believes killed him just killed his partner in front of him. That, and the entire Game was illegal and he has to play again! Because Neku is a trooper, he doesn't give up, and is actually pretty inspired going into the third week, on account of he's going to own the shit out of it to avenge Joshua and save Shiki. The third week is also when he's partnered with Beat, which is an adventure in learning to deal with someone even more overzealous than he is. But, now that he's opened up to Shiki and learned to trust his partner! unconditionally, he falls into step with Beat more quickly than the other two. However, throughout the entire week, Neku is fixated on Joshua's "sacrifice" the previous week -- he blames himself, naturally, possibly more because of the above "hint" that he had a tragic death of someone close to him in his past. It both drives him to succeed and makes him completely miserable.
Then there's the influence of Mr. H. Mr. H is a reservoir of inspirational one-liners and mantras that tell Neku to enjoy the moment! and trust your partner! because, well. He kind of needs that advice. The "open up and have friends" part comes in handy when he has to take down the final boss! And then he has a crisis over the one person he thought he could really relate to actually having lied to him repeatedly. And shot him. And even when he's given the opportunity to get revenge and shoot him, Neku is too emotional to do it. So he gets shot again. BUT he doesn't mind much, because he winds up back in the RG and alive not long after, and gives an endearing monologue totally meant for Joshua to hear about how he's happy and has friends for the first time in a long time. And he doesn't forgive for being shot, but his trust goes deeper than that. Neku's kind of a weird kid with friendships.
In general, in established friendships, Neku tends to be kind of stoic and easily irritated. He's cynical and sarcastic and has a habit of getting angry very quickly if someone (i.e. Joshua :|) does something that bugs him. Towards people he dislikes he is openly hostile, and gives such people degrading nicknames like the rest of this canon does for some reason. When he's annoyed he gets overconfident and rushes into things with a sense of confidence that would be entirely misplaced if he weren't exceptional at pin combat. Neku is someone for whom absolutely everything that could go wrong, goes wrong in kind for him in a very short time; the fact that he doesn't give up immediately shows the sheer strength of his will, although he does have a breaking point (at the end of canon, essentially, when he has a breakdown because he thinks he's still in the UG).
He essentially starts off as an entitled, arrogant, rude teenager, and is in the process of learning to have functional relationships. He's a little socially awkward as a result.
His ~Imagination~ is also, apparently, really really awesome, and half the reason he got sucked into the Games in the first place (the other half being he was the most awful person in Shibuya and therefore was fit to unknowingly have the fate of the entire city placed on whether or not he, personally, managed to stop being so hideously awful). Despite this ~Imagination, his nickname skills actually do suck.
Abilities: He can use Psychs, which are pretty much just psychically activated combat powers/various status boosts if he has his special UG pins. They let him do fun things like make columns of fire, use an assortment of hand-to-hand combat abilities, heal himself, ....float around like a ninny..... The Player Pin prevents others from reading his mind. That kind of thing. Otherwise he's kind of easy to push around.
Sample Entry:
[When the voice comes on, the speaker sounds groggy and rather irritable. That's his default, really--irritable. The groggy is new, but give him a break, he slept in.]
Uh, hey- everyone.
[Pause. Someday he will be used to this phonecalling strangers out of nowhere thing. He clears his throat a little awkwardly.]
So, the fifties, huh. Guess I'll get used to that.
.... Maybe. Uh- what is there to do around here, anyway? Tell me there's something better than going to school and dressing like a freaking dork all the time. I'm gonna go stir crazy sitting around at--home. The pictures are still creepy.
[There is a pause. Well. Now what.]
... That's it, I guess.
Personal LJ: tableflips
Contact Info: aim: jesus beams
Other Characters Played: n/a
Preferred Housing: n/a
Character Name: Neku Sakuraba
Character Series: The World Ends With You
Character Age: 15
Background: wikia; he will be post-game!
Personality: Neku begins as the most antisocial person to ever exist; he is terse, downright rude, and utterly convinced that all he needs in life is himself. He only puts up with other people if they're useful to him, and refuses to let them get close to him. He's constantly irritated and believes that everyone else is beneath him and either stupid, not worth his time, or both. This starts to change when he wakes up in the UG version of Shibuya, mostly because he is forced to be constantly around another person or he'll be erased. Shiki draws him out of his shell often by force, bugging him until he reacts with more than a blank stare or a snappy retort, and is the first cause of his becoming a nicer person.
As time goes on, he slowly becomes more and more open to the ideas of friendship, trusting people, and being more open. He shows sympathy towards his friends, although he's pretty awkward about it, and slowly begins to become much less irritable and rude and is actually a decent guy to be around. Neku is fiercely loyal and has a tendency to get way too attached to the people he does consider friends, for one reason or another (canon hints that he may have had a friend whose death he blames himself for).
Mid-canon, he's still kind of in the transition period between thinking that other people/society do nothing but force their values on him and make him feel useless, and actually appreciating and enjoying his friendships/the world at large. As such, he's incredibly shaky on the interpersonal relations front; on the one hand, he really values his friends and is ridiculously loyal to them to the point of blaming himself for everything bad that happens to them, and on the other hand, he still takes a long time to actually deem any given person worthy of his trust/time.
By the end of the game he kind of goes through a lot of crap. After the end of his second week, he is faced with the knowledge that the person he believes killed him just killed his partner in front of him. That, and the entire Game was illegal and he has to play again! Because Neku is a trooper, he doesn't give up, and is actually pretty inspired going into the third week, on account of he's going to own the shit out of it to avenge Joshua and save Shiki. The third week is also when he's partnered with Beat, which is an adventure in learning to deal with someone even more overzealous than he is. But, now that he's opened up to Shiki and learned to trust his partner! unconditionally, he falls into step with Beat more quickly than the other two. However, throughout the entire week, Neku is fixated on Joshua's "sacrifice" the previous week -- he blames himself, naturally, possibly more because of the above "hint" that he had a tragic death of someone close to him in his past. It both drives him to succeed and makes him completely miserable.
Then there's the influence of Mr. H. Mr. H is a reservoir of inspirational one-liners and mantras that tell Neku to enjoy the moment! and trust your partner! because, well. He kind of needs that advice. The "open up and have friends" part comes in handy when he has to take down the final boss! And then he has a crisis over the one person he thought he could really relate to actually having lied to him repeatedly. And shot him. And even when he's given the opportunity to get revenge and shoot him, Neku is too emotional to do it. So he gets shot again. BUT he doesn't mind much, because he winds up back in the RG and alive not long after, and gives an endearing monologue totally meant for Joshua to hear about how he's happy and has friends for the first time in a long time. And he doesn't forgive for being shot, but his trust goes deeper than that. Neku's kind of a weird kid with friendships.
In general, in established friendships, Neku tends to be kind of stoic and easily irritated. He's cynical and sarcastic and has a habit of getting angry very quickly if someone (i.e. Joshua :|) does something that bugs him. Towards people he dislikes he is openly hostile, and gives such people degrading nicknames like the rest of this canon does for some reason. When he's annoyed he gets overconfident and rushes into things with a sense of confidence that would be entirely misplaced if he weren't exceptional at pin combat. Neku is someone for whom absolutely everything that could go wrong, goes wrong in kind for him in a very short time; the fact that he doesn't give up immediately shows the sheer strength of his will, although he does have a breaking point (at the end of canon, essentially, when he has a breakdown because he thinks he's still in the UG).
He essentially starts off as an entitled, arrogant, rude teenager, and is in the process of learning to have functional relationships. He's a little socially awkward as a result.
His ~Imagination~ is also, apparently, really really awesome, and half the reason he got sucked into the Games in the first place (the other half being he was the most awful person in Shibuya and therefore was fit to unknowingly have the fate of the entire city placed on whether or not he, personally, managed to stop being so hideously awful). Despite this ~Imagination, his nickname skills actually do suck.
Abilities: He can use Psychs, which are pretty much just psychically activated combat powers/various status boosts if he has his special UG pins. They let him do fun things like make columns of fire, use an assortment of hand-to-hand combat abilities, heal himself, ....float around like a ninny..... The Player Pin prevents others from reading his mind. That kind of thing. Otherwise he's kind of easy to push around.
Sample Entry:
[When the voice comes on, the speaker sounds groggy and rather irritable. That's his default, really--irritable. The groggy is new, but give him a break, he slept in.]
Uh, hey- everyone.
[Pause. Someday he will be used to this phonecalling strangers out of nowhere thing. He clears his throat a little awkwardly.]
So, the fifties, huh. Guess I'll get used to that.
.... Maybe. Uh- what is there to do around here, anyway? Tell me there's something better than going to school and dressing like a freaking dork all the time. I'm gonna go stir crazy sitting around at--home. The pictures are still creepy.
[There is a pause. Well. Now what.]
... That's it, I guess.