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[mellowyellow]

PLAYER

» Journal: mellowyellow
» Birthdate/Age: March 1990; 22
» Characters Played: N/A

CHARACTER FACTS

» Name: Masaomi Kida
» Canon: Durarara!!
» Reference: http://durarara.wikia.com/wiki/Masaomi_Kida
» Canon Point: Episode 24; directly after he passes out
» Gender: Male
» Age: 15

CHARACTER INTERPRETATION

» Appearance:

Aged to eighteen years, Masaomi Kida stands at five feet eight inches, taller than his friends but shorter than most of his gang. He will never have the impressive, body-builder physique that gives many of his older followers their brutal reputations, but he sports lean, sinewy muscle. His is the tight body of a runner, far from Olympic grade (there's no perfectly sculpted six pack hiding under that sweatshirt) but clearly active. Two or three scars are visible enough to notice when uncovered, old slices and gashes he will only laugh off if mentioned.

Ritually dyed blond hair retains its style, a long boy's cut, bangs untamed save for their miraculous ability to settle over every part of his face but his eyes. It would be a shame if his hair got in the way of his admiration of the many buxom bosoms in the world, and those expressive amber eyes are certainly attentive to those areas of the female population. Silver bands still adorn his ears, an attempt to stand out from the crowd as with most of his unexpected but plain jewelry choices. Belts and chains are a permanent attachment, and often it seems as if the hoodies he so loves are too. Simple but stylish appears to be his motto, and he rarely wears patterns, preferring solid colors from his shirt to his boots. Don't expect to find him in tennis shoes; he likes to make noise when he walks into a room.

» Suitability:

In all honesty, Masaomi is rarely able to handle anything negative well on an emotional level. There will be pitfalls in his adjustment to Atia's lifestyle, most of them having to do with his ex-girlfriend's kidnapping and torture at the hands of a rival gang. As far as maturity is concerned, however, he is undoubtedly capable, and he will eventually learn to cope.

He is far from shy when it comes to his interest in the opposite sex. In fact, he shapes a large portion of his life around it and has since his final years in elementary school. He starts dating quite young and sustains a (mostly) healthy relationship with Saki Mikajima until about a year before his canon point. While at the canon point I've chosen his constant talk about girls is more for other people's benefit than his own, he is still entirely willing to make a fool of himself in front of complete strangers in an attempt to score a date. Rejection slides right off of him. His friend Anri's ample chest is a regular conversation starter, and he's comfortable with being positively lewd every day of the week.

Most of his joking around is for kicks, occasionally used as a tool to prove he's okay when he's not or tease his friends into a confession, and Masaomi has yet to do the deed. He will no doubt be in over his head from day one, but his attitude makes it clear that he wouldn't say no to inquiring boobs. Even if he has reason to do so, Masaomi couldn't and wouldn't allow himself to die over sex, even temporarily. If he's purposely going out, it will have to be by fighting for someone important. His hero complex demands it.

Outside of his failed skirt chasing, Masaomi already takes care of himself in canon. While he doesn't live alone, his parents are a nonentity in his life and don't seem to pay any attention to what he does or even the crimes he commits. In fact, he'd rather not depend on them, or anyone save for a select few. He's been burned enough times that he intentionally avoids it. In his spare time, he has commanded over a hundred followers through dangerous gang rivalries, and though he doesn't come out of it clean, he is still in one piece. At one point, Izaya remarks that Masaomi had "an adult face" even in middle school, one way of identifying that Masaomi shoulders a great deal of responsibility beyond his years and (more importantly in Izaya's eyes) that it's left a visible mark on how Masaomi carries himself. Frankly, if he can found and lead such a large gang by the age of thirteen, he can support himself in Atia.

» Orientation:

Masaomi Kida is loudly and undeniably interested in the ladies. He has a canon (currently ex) girlfriend, quickly propositions his friend Anri, drags his friend Mikado around to pick up girls after school, and jokingly falls in love at first sight with thirty-seven female students at Raira Academy's opening ceremony. Amusingly, he's more touchy-feely with his guy friend Mikado than he is with any girl in the series - hugs, tackles, and tickle wars to name a few of their antics - but this contrast isn't related to his orientation. He has only expressed romantic interest in women, and he expresses this interest to as many women as humanly possible. He just waits for the girl to close the distance before making any physical move.

» Personality

Masaomi Kida is quite the catch, if you can get past all the reasons he isn't. Spoiler alert, there are a lot of reasons.

This particular high school drop out happens to be a notorious(ly bad) flirt, a bit on the obnoxious side, and convinced that his jokes are actually funny. They're not. He's playful to a fault and over-animated, almost too passionate about what he enjoys. A true-blue extrovert who is always the most energized when surrounding himself with friends. His favorite pastime is to go out on the town and pick up girls, dragging his poor friend Mikado along with him when he can, but despite his big talk, he fails spectacularly. Of course, it's hard to get a girl to laugh with you rather than at you when you're flapping your elbows like a chicken.

Somehow though, when it matters most, even these outlandish traits can work in his favor. He's sensitive to others' feelings so long as they don't directly concern him and tries hard to make people feel better about themselves. The effort he puts into it is more than a little noticeable despite that it's often disguised as Masaomi's usual antics. In a way, that's all Masaomi's usual antics are: an attempt to raise everyone around him to his own excitement level. He wants a chance to be the hero, the good guy, a knight for all the princesses of the world, and this is largely what motivates his everyday actions. He has a certain charisma, an energy about him that can liven up any party and make anything his own. He can take charge or fool around; he scares away awkward silences and brings people together. All through joking around like a carefree dumbass. One of those people at whom someone can only shake their head and smile fondly while saying, "That's Masaomi for you."

Unfortunately, this too-happy-for-his-own-good image is little more than brightly colored wrapping paper meant to distract from the disappointing contents within. Masaomi doesn't act like a different person than he actually is or hide his true self behind a mask. What he does is willfully deny parts of himself because he doesn't want to or can't deal with them at the time. Chilling beneath the surface and shaping his otherwise sincere motives is a swirling miasma of guilt, depression, doubt, and self-loathing. It's partly for the benefit of others that he puts up the facade whenever he's with them, and it's partly for himself. He doesn't want anyone to know he's unhappy, especially why he's unhappy.

First and foremost, Masaomi is lonely. He has always been lonely. He has felt as if he has no place in the world, something that probably originated because his parents don't give a rat's ass about him or anything he does. He seeks out others in order to create that elusive place where he can belong, a place he lost when he moved to Ikebukuro, leaving his friend Mikado behind. In true Masaomi fashion, however, he has a tendency to search in all the wrong places. Faced with the transition from small town to big city, he dives head first into the thick of things and comes out the other end as the accidental but effective leader of a delinquent gang. After all, why settle for something small? If nobody cares, then he'll make them care. Masaomi isn't a flame, he's a firework! By forming his color gang the Yellow Scarves, the young rebel without a cause creates the place for himself that he’s wanted and thanks to Izaya is even able to find a girl with whom he can share it, Saki Mikajima.

Of course, the moment one utters the phrase “thanks to Izaya” is the moment shit hits the fan.

Guilt is one of the ultimate motivators. It is certainly one of Masaomi's. Though Izaya is the one who doesn’t answer his call for help, though the Yellow Scarves’ rival gang members are the ones who torture Saki, Masaomi Kida is the one who couldn’t save her. No actions anyone else may have taken against him shift an ounce of blame away from himself. He should never have allowed himself to become so dependent on Izaya’s help, he should never have allowed himself to become drunk with his victories, and he most definitely should never have allowed himself to freeze from fear. With the nurturing power of his anxiety and doubt, overwhelming guilt quickly spirals into depression and self-loathing.

Even as he slowly resolves his worst issues, he never forgets them. They remind him regularly of the consequences of his actions and of the people he has put in harm's way, giving him a foundation on which to base his pride. (If he doesn't help this person, he’ll never be able to look Mikado in the eye again, etc.) But these reminders at times also wreak havoc on his decision making skills which are already subpar at best, flushing the boy down more than one angsty teenage emotional spiral of misery.

Having experienced what he has, he has an almost inhuman determination, perhaps desperation, not to allow his friends to fall into "the dark side" of Tokyo the way he did. He will evade, lie, act, cheat, betray, kill, and die to make sure it doesn't happen. Nothing makes him angrier, nothing makes him more frightened, than losing it all again. Every transgression made toward them, every subtle sign of discomfort, he wants to change it. He didn't have anyone to hold him back before, so now he wants to be that person for others who need him.

What's grown out of this combination of motives is a fierce but faulty protectiveness. Not a possessiveness, but a misguided loyalty and will to preserve the peace he so enjoys, even if his methods mean he may never again be able to experience that peace himself. He’d rather give it all up then let it be taken from him again. Whether a person be a friend, an acquaintance, or a member of his gang, he places their safety into his own hands with a firm and steady belief that what they don't know won't hurt them.

This ties into one of Masaomi's coping mechanisms: a type of escapism made possible through intense compartmentalization. He has trouble seeing himself as one all-around person. Often he sees himself in parts and worries about what others will think when they see a side of him they don’t usually see. At times this fear is founded, which only fuels his concern even in situations where it’s not. When Mikado arrives in Ikebukuro, Masaomi splits his life into two realities, temporarily disregarding the reality of his life with his gang in order to start with a clean slate in the reality of his life at Raira Academy. In one reality, he is the amazing best friend of Mikado and Anri and failure flirt extraordinaire; in the other, he will punch an overzealous gang member across the room for not following orders. He keeps each reality as separate from the other as possible, and this complete separation (moving from one social identity to the other rather than mixing them) allows him to function under a different moral code in each reality. When the two worlds start to mix, so do his separate lifestyles, and he does all he can to stop it. His advice to both sides usually consists of "stay away from X," and any further questions will be answered with vague ambiguity or silence before the conversation is steered back to its correct reality. He takes it upon himself to watch out for problems on all sides and react accordingly, without informing those he's trying to protect of his other reality.

How can he tell them, when he's managed to convince himself his friends would hate him for it? He hates himself for it, after all. He hates himself for hiding it, for feeling like he has to hide it, for how he's handled past situations, for repeating the same mistakes. If he can hate himself so thoroughly, how can they not?

If it isn't noticeable enough already, Masaomi has some glaring trust issues. This isn't surprising when even his girlfriend spent a year in the hospital supposedly unable to walk, when in reality she had recovered some time before. He will avoid entrusting his fate to adults in particular so long as he has the choice. They're great for occasional advice, but if he sticks around too long, they'll betray him eventually. A history of parental negligence heaped on top of Izaya's cruel manipulation leaves him unable to count on the older generation to the extent that he doesn't even consider it an option. When faced with dire, suicidal circumstances, he has a ridiculously powerful but kind man towering above him telling him he shouldn't have to kill or die in a place like Tokyo, and instead of ask for help, he smiles and laughs and plays pretend like nothing is wrong until he can get moving again. His problems are his own.

It is, however, possible for Masaomi to enjoy someone's company, love them wholeheartedly, while knowing they are lying to him. Trust isn’t necessarily required for him to like someone because if it was, he would have no one to like. Rather, he ends up allowing others excuses for their lies while giving himself no quarter. Anri and Mikado both hide things from him, just as he hides things from them, but he is the one who doubted them not the other way around, so he’s the worst.

It's this sort of backwards thinking, twisting everything to be his own fault, that brings about moments when he allows himself to brood or be serious.

Alone, he has little to distract himself from his thoughts and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the gang-infested city streets. The change in not only expression but body language the moment he finds himself without an audience is readily apparent, as if a string that holds his head and shoulders high is suddenly cut. Usually the only person who gets to see this kind of helpless brooding is Saki, though Izaya has a knack for bringing it out of him when he tries.

When Masaomi Kida gets serious, it's another story. When Masaomi Kida gets serious, he gets serious. And everyone is going to know about it. He is well aware of the horrors of which people are capable, that life is never fair, but he can only face his obstacles head on with a deadly glare and a nail puller to the ribs. He didn't gain the respect necessary to lead a gang through pretty words. Despite the silly jokes, the flirting, the insecurity, the guilt - Masaomi is a fighter at the core. He lives to survive, and to give others the same chance. If someone gets in the way of that, he will mess them up. Revenge is a serious motivator for him, a bastardization of the hero's duty, and the pain he is willing to both inflict and endure for it is no laughing matter. When something is truly important to him, he won't let go of it so easily, even when it does nothing but hurt.

It's a little selfless, a little selfish, a little sacrificial, and a little self-sabotaging, but in the end, it's just a lot of Masaomi Kida.

SAMPLES

» First Person Sample Choice: First Person Prompt One

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[The world has gone mad. It's the only viable explanation, and it's finally happened. Everyone on Earth has devolved into batshit insane lunatics who retain only their basest desires. This would be a cool movie; it's not a great reality.

Masaomi doesn't know what to think, how to act, where to go, or who to be. The young (old? somehow older?) teen is completely and utterly at a loss. He doesn't entirely believe any of this, but he doesn't know what else to believe either. In the case of most of the human population, the general consensus is that in such a situation you should just be yourself (unless you can be Batman). A confused Masaomi takes a slightly different approach.

Clothed in nothing but dark pants (he can't wear his hoodie, you see, it has some not-at-all-questionable stains on it which need to be washed) and an orange dog collar, he sprawls out comfortably on his stomach, his toes hanging over the edge of the elaborately lavish bed in which he'd awoken. He smiles the most charming smile he can muster.]

So when do I get my harem of hot babes in short drapes?

» Third Person Sample Choice: Third Person Prompt Two

He found his mind wandering to Saki, as it so often did when he didn't want it to. It was impossible to think of anything else now though. He thought about how he'd never done anything like that with her, about how sometimes he wanted to try it and sometimes he didn't. Right now he was a little glad he hadn't ever had the chance. As he pictured those developing curves - so vivid, too vivid for any normal dream - and the soft, electric feel that was still a tingle on his finger tips, he felt he might have enjoyed it too much.

It was that thought which finally coaxed him from his lethargy. Slowly, he propped himself up on one elbow and then the other, blinking groggily at an unfamiliar room. It took another few seconds for him to remember where he was now, his recollection spurred by a stiff material rubbing against his throat when he swallowed. Groaning, he plopped right down onto his back again, hand over his eyes as he laughed softly to himself. Man, what a joke. Not just the situation at large but the mess in his pants. If that tightness was any indication, he was still half-hard, and remembering the sensation as his fingers glided lower, lower, deeper, deeper left him no question as to why that was.

He needed a shower. The coldest shower of his life. And then he needed to not think about Saki. If he was going to do this, if he really had no choice, he needed to keep her completely separate from it. For himself, he noted with some shame as he completely sat up this time, more than for her.