Masaomi Kida (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mellowyellow) wrote2015-02-03 08:28 am
mellowyellow) wrote2015-02-03 08:28 am
OOC ♪ CARVAKA APP
APPLICATION
▸PLAYER
Name: Wind
Means of Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
shogunsensual
Age: 24
Other Characters Played: n/a
▸CHARACTER
Name: Masaomi Kida
Journal: mellowyellow
Canon: Durarara!!
Age: 16
Canon Point: Volume 6 intro
Background Information:
Masaomi grew up in Saitama with his friend Mikado Ryuugamine. He had a normal childhood, though his parents were unnaturally apathetic to their son's whereabouts and activities, allowing him to regularly get caught up in fights and drag Mikado on forest excursions at 4AM in the morning.
He was forced to move to Tokyo upon entering middle school. When he saw one of his classmates being bullied, he jumped in to help him. This happened again and again until he carved out a name for himself. Before he knew it, the people he'd helped were listening to his every order. They brought in their friends, and their friends brought in their friends. By thirteen, Masaomi was the leader of his own color gang, the Yellow Scarves.
While he and his gang were out on the streets one day, he met his soon-to-be girlfriend, Saki Mikajima. Not only did she so boldly approach his group but she knew his name even though they'd never met. Izaya Orihara promptly introduced himself as the one who had informed her, as well as her kinda-sorta guardian. Masaomi didn't like or trust Izaya, but he enjoyed being with Saki. Unfortunately, Saki had an unhealthy dependency on Izaya. Masaomi wanted to free her from that, insisting that if she knew that dependency was a flaw, she should fix it. He'd help her! It was after this that they began to date despite that gang rivalries were growing by the day.
Masaomi expected the conflicts to fit the usual pattern. They were delinquent gangs, a bunch of middle school kids. How much damage could they do? Instead, the older, crueler Blue Square played dirty. Masaomi admitted to watching over a hundred of his friends injured in one-sided fights. Saki suggested he take his problem to Izaya, just like she always did. Finally, he gave in.
Izaya's aid turned the tide wholy in Yellow Scarves' favor. He taught them new strategies and gave them valuable intel that had Blue Square running. Masaomi gradually forgot what had bothered him about the sly informant, becoming nearly as dependent on him as Saki was. Izaya seized his opportunity.
Saki approached Blue Square alone after Izaya told her that it would end the gang war and keep Masaomi safe. Shortly afterward, Masaomi got a call from their leader Izumii. The Blue Square members broke Saki's legs so her seething boyfriend could hear her screaming through the phone.
The leader of the Yellow Scarves threw his phone in anger but just as quickly dove for it again, frantically dialing Izaya's number. When there was no answer, he bolted out into the streets of Ikebukuro to save her himself. He continued to call Izaya all the while, but the informant never picked up. Just as Masaomi was getting close to where he knew they were holding Saki, his bravado, his determination, the adrenaline - it all left him simultaneously, replaced by a paralyzing fear. He froze, his feet glued to the sidewalk.
He was still standing there, drenched from the rain, when Kadota and his group of disgruntled former Blue Square members drove past to take Saki to Raira General Hospital.
Saki fell into a coma. Masaomi came to the hospital to see her, but while he stood at her bedside, Izaya crashed the solemn moment, adding insult to injury with professional ease. A lecture in twisted theology led to the conclusion that Masaomi's guilt would raise Saki onto a divine pedestal. She would become his god, the embodiment of his failure that would rule over him for the rest of his life. With those damning words buzzing in his ears, he watched Izaya leave. Saki eventually woke up and began her long recovery, but by then, Masaomi didn't have the guts to see her again.
Masaomi grew increasingly depressed and withdrawn. Having given up his leadership of the Yellow Scarves, he felt he'd lost his place in the world again, questioned whether he'd ever had one, and despite that he knew Izaya was the mastermind behind his grief, he blamed himself because his own actions were what sealed the deal.
Lost and in desperate need of any small comfort, he turned to internet chats with his old friend Mikado. During these online chats, Masaomi felt calm, like the world didn't have to be as harsh as he knew it to be. He left out everything about the gangs and his dangerous experiences, making Ikebukuro sound like an amazing and magical place. He was the ultimate PR spokesman for Raira Academy especially, and soon enough, he convinced Mikado to move to Ikebukuro so they could attend high school together.
When school started, Mikado and Masaomi were in different classes, but that certainly didn't stop them from meeting up before school, hanging out during lunch, and walking home together. After a few early encounters with shy girl Anri Sonohara, they happily absorbed her into their comfortable little trio.
During one of those early encounters, Mikado and Masaomi caught some nasty girls in the act of bullying Anri. Just as Mikado moved to intervene, Izaya showed up and pushed him into the open before scaring the bullies away himself. Masaomi was uncharacteristically quiet and subdued as he introduced his friends to his enemy, but still he didn't tell Mikado anything about the man other than that he was dangerous.
When Mikado asked about the Dollars shortly afterward, Masaomi went straight to Kadota for information as Kadota had since joined Dollars himself. There were rumors floating around the city that Dollars were similar to a color gang, and Mikado even mentioning it was enough to get Masaomi worried. He didn't get any useful information on them from Kadota, but at school, he presented Mikado with a list of people who could potentially be Dollars members. Masaomi dragged Mikado up to the roof with the intent to ask fellow classmate Takiguchi whether he was in the Dollars. Surprisingly, Takiguchi said that he was. They talked to him about it, and with that, Masaomi thought he'd managed to cure Mikado's curiosity.
Six months passed in this way. The trio of high school students enjoyed their carefree lives. Masaomi made a habit of intercepting a certain teacher who had his perverted eyes on Anri and eventually decided that he would give Mikado a handicap in their love triangle, pushing his friend toward admitting his feelings for Anri in typically outlandish ways.
Unfortunately, the growing tensions in Tokyo were ready to explode. Someone dubbed the Slasher was running around Ikebukuro and attacking random people with a katana, but Masaomi's inevitable downward spiral didn't begin until he learned that Anri had been a victim.
Anri was hospitalized, finally motivating Masaomi to enter Raira General Hospital. All Masaomi could see was a repeat of what had happened to Saki. He'd let it happen again. Because of that he also mustered up the courage to visit Saki for the first time in a year. Unable to apologize, he broke up with her instead.
Immediately after this visit, he accepted the Yellow Scarves' request that he return to lead them. His plan was to use Yellow Scarves' connections to get revenge on the Slasher for what he'd done to Anri. The rumor mill insisted that the Slasher was a member of Dollars, so Masaomi once again turned to Kadota. He insisted that he just wanted to talk to the leader of the Dollars. He didn't want to start another gang war. But as Kadota pointed out, they couldn't trust him completely because his subordinates didn't feel the same way. The gang had changed in the year Masaomi had been away - members were now older and more violent. Determined, Masaomi continued to press. When he told Kadota about Anri, the man gave him the phone number of someone who would know the identity of Dollars' leader.
It was Izaya's number, and the information broker happily told his client the truth: Mikado Ryuugamine was the founder of Dollars. Masaomi was shocked, understandably so, but he couldn't ask Mikado about it.
The situation was bad, but it became even worse when Anri sneaked into the gang's warehouse and discovered that Masaomi led the dangerous Yellow Scarves. The gang searched for the unknown intruder, but just as they were about to find her, the infamous Headless Rider, an urban legend in Ikebukuro of a headless motorcyclist, charged into the yard and prepared to drive her to safety. Horada threw metal piping at them despite Masaomi's orders against it, but Anri blocked it with Saika, and the two made their escape. Masaomi immediately realized the ramifications of this event. The Headless Rider was affiliated with Dollars. The fact that she saved the Slasher meant that the Slasher was affiliated with Dollars. There was now no way for him to hold back his gang. They would be itching to wipe out the Dollars completely.
When his gang discovered that Anri was, in fact, the Slasher who had supposedly injured her, it sent Masaomi over the edge as well. After a long and surreal chase, Masaomi snatched Anri's hand and pulled her into a secluded alleyway to keep Horada, one of his own men, from catching her. He lashed out at her, vaguely psychotic in his forcefulness, and accused her of shamelessly using him and Mikado. She slapped him and left.
He was utterly listless when Horada called to let him know he was "fired" from his own gang. Horada had found out that Masaomi's best friend was the leader of Dollars. There was now an execution order out on Masaomi's head, and he'd never be able to show his face in Ikebukuro again. In fact, Horada and Co. had even shot Shizuo Heiwajima, one of the strongest and most dangerous men in Ikebukuro, claiming that Masaomi Kida had ordered it. None of this made Masaomi angrier than when Horada exclaimed that he'd be going after Mikado's head.
The doubts Masaomi had held toward Mikado and Anri seemed ridiculous now. What if Horada attacked Mikado? What if he kidnapped Anri to get to Mikado? It didn't matter who Mikado and Anri were, Masaomi had to protect them at any cost. He dropped his phone and ran.
He barged into the gang base alone and unarmed. The majority of the Yellow Scarves were still scared of him, backing away with his every step forward. Masaomi announced his intention to kill Horada right there and then, and Horada ordered the gang to attack. They couldn't hold the former leader back. He had nearly reached Horada when he received a second critical hit to the head and fell. Horada may have shot him execution style if not for Anri slicing through the building's door and Mikado arriving on the back of the Headless Rider's motorcycle.
When the Yellow Scarves surrounded the intruders, ready to attack, an unexpected call rose up, and suddenly Kadota was revealed to have infiltrated the gang, just as Horada and a large number of Blue Square had infiltrated the Yellow Scarves while Masaomi had been away. Masaomi was dumbfounded, suffering from one concussion too many to do much critical thinking, but there was still work to be done. Now that he knew Horada was part of Blue Square, he pushed forward despite his injuries and punched the out-of-control delinquent in the face. The only reason Horada was still alive, he explained, was because Mikado and Anri didn't deserve to see a corpse.
All of his energy drained from him then, and he collapsed. Mikado ran to support him, and Anri followed. They shared heartfelt apologies and confessions, and Masaomi asked them to take him to Raira General Hospital because he had a girl waiting for him there. He then passed out from blood loss.
After Masaomi was treated, he regained consciousness and received an unexpected visitor in Saki Mikajima. While Masaomi had been fighting for his life, Saki had sold Izaya out to Simon. Apparently, she could also walk. Masaomi deducted that she had recovered some time before but pretended she hadn't so that Izaya could keep Masaomi tied down to Ikebukuro and use him as a pawn, even going so far as lying about how he'd already known. He finally apologized for not being able to save her and begged her to take him back. She did.
Once recovered, the two of them left Ikebukuro. Masaomi didn't so much as say goodbye to Mikado or Anri, but directly after he left, he joined Mikado's exclusive Dollars chatroom. In that way, he was able to keep in contact with his friends while still protected by a veil of anonymity.
Unfortunately, a sixteen year old high school dropout had very few career prospects. Masaomi and Saki needed to support themselves somehow. Yet again, Masaomi crawled back to Izaya despite his better judgement. The couple worked for the informant gathering information wherever he asked them to go. This lasted for several months.
When Izaya sent them on a sudden mission to a remote Northeastern village with no internet access, Masaomi grew increasingly anxious. Returning home did nothing to assuage his worries. He logged into the Dollars chatroom the moment he could, but he discovered that no one was on and that the chat archives had vanished.
"Maybe they all disappeared," Saki joked.
"Don't scare me," Masaomi laughed.
He convinced himself that his growing dread was just an overreaction and turned off the computer.
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 (if not their motivations) and tries hard to make people feel better about themselves. He wants a chance to be the hero, the good guy, a knight for all the princesses of the world. 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 make even the mundane fun and interesting. He has a certain charisma, an energy about him that can liven up a 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. In fact, after Masaomi drops out of high school and begins traveling with his girlfriend, Mikado tells him that he and Anri miss him, his classmates miss him, even the teacher is worried about him, and not to be discouraged because his parents don't. It's quite a statement.
In order to create that elusive place where he can belong, a place he lost when he moved to Ikebukuro and left his friend Mikado behind, he seeks out anyone who will have him. 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? 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 Masaomi's ultimate motivators. Though Izaya is the one who doesn’t answer his call for help, though Yellow Scarves’ rival gang are the ones who torture Saki, Masaomi Kida is the one who couldn’t save her. None of the obstacles in his path shift an ounce of blame away from himself. He allows Izaya to manipulate him, too drunk with his perceived victories to see the bigger picture, and when his defining moment comes, he freezes in fear, essentially leaving his girlfriend to die. With the nurturing power of his anxiety and doubt, the overwhelming guilt of these truths quickly spirals him 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 is a fierce but faulty protectiveness. Not a possessiveness but a misguided loyalty and backwards will to preserve his peace, even if his own actions destroy it in the process. 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 he alone must protect them. He takes it upon himself to watch out for problems on all sides and react accordingly, without informing those he's trying to protect.
This ties into one of Masaomi's key coping mechanisms: compartmentalization. He has trouble seeing himself as one whole person. Instead, he sees himself in mental segments. A great deal of his anxiety stems from worries about what others will think when they see a side of him they don’t usually see. In order to prevent that, Masaomi adapts to situations by essentially separating them from each other. He willfully splits his life into different "realities." In one reality, he is the failure flirt extraordinaire and street-wise best friend to Mikado and Anri; in another, he will punch one of his own followers across a warehouse floor for not following orders. He keeps each reality as separate from the other as possible, and this complete separation allows him to function under a different moral code in each reality without compromising the other reality. When the two worlds start to mix, so do his separate lifestyles, and that's when he makes his biggest mistakes.
Simply put, Masaomi can't be straight with his friends because if they knew what kind of person he was, they would undoubtedly hate him for it. He hates himself for it, after all. Even when he's finally willing to stop running and accept his mistakes, his logic behind it is that he made those mistakes because that's the kind of person he is. It's just as much condemnation as it is forgiveness. If he can hate himself so thoroughly, how can his friends 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 but in reality had recovered months 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 runs into a ridiculously powerful but kind man telling him he shouldn't have to kill or die in a place like Tokyo. Instead of ask for help, Masaomi jokes and laughs and rates the man's sushi restaurant until he can get away. 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 required for affection because if it was, he would have no one. Rather, he ends up allowing others excuses for their lies while giving himself no quarter. Anri and Mikado both hide things from him for the same reason that he hides things from them, but he is the one who doubted them, not the other way around, so he’s the only one at fault.
It's this sort of backwards thinking, twisting facts so that the blame lies with him, that brings about moments when he allows himself to brood or be serious.
Alone, he has little to distract himself from the claustrophobic atmosphere of 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. The only person he displays this kind of helpless brooding to 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 doesn't gain the respect necessary to lead a gang through pretty words. Despite the silly jokes, the insecurity - Masaomi is a fighter at his 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 dish he readily serves, his own unique bastardization of a 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.
Appearance:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1ZW4ZNe9wi0/TB7jEj_kfzI/AAAAAAAAAZ8/sSdfpLKKpug/s1600/Durarara+pic.jpg
Abilities:
Masaomi is a dumb teenage boy with no cool powers whatsoever, but it's notable that his intuition is highly developed. He reads people and situations, getting (aggravatingly vague) "bad feelings" or anxiety from clues that he can't otherwise piece together. This will likely never become an issue with Carvaka villains, however, because Masaomi is a dumb teenage boy and consistently disregards his own premonitions until it's too late.
▸SAMPLES:
(One sample may be a link to a post/log thread of decent length that's occurred in the last six months from another game, or from a meme/musebox if the setting is the same as what the character will be apped from and the thread provides a good example of characterization — i.e. no AU settings or overly cracky memes. The other sample must be written to take place in Carvaka's setting.)
First Person:
[There's a new face around, flashing its pearly white smile for all the end of the world to see. Someone has apparently decided that the destruction of everything he loves is nothing to be worried about. Or, rather, it's something not worth rehashing when the reminders already surround them every moment of every day.]
Calling all cute girls, calling all cute girls! I've got a super, hyper, mega important announcement for all cute girls!
[Masaomi allows for a suitable pause. He's being dramatic, after all, and the whole thing would just fall flat without perfect timing.]
Kida Masaomi has arrived! You're welcome!
[No, really. That's the announcement. Cheers.]
Third Person:
http://havenlogs.dreamwidth.org/295556.html?thread=78614404#cmt78614404
▸PLAYER
Name: Wind
Means of Contact:
Age: 24
Other Characters Played: n/a
▸CHARACTER
Name: Masaomi Kida
Journal: mellowyellow
Canon: Durarara!!
Age: 16
Canon Point: Volume 6 intro
Background Information:
Masaomi grew up in Saitama with his friend Mikado Ryuugamine. He had a normal childhood, though his parents were unnaturally apathetic to their son's whereabouts and activities, allowing him to regularly get caught up in fights and drag Mikado on forest excursions at 4AM in the morning.
He was forced to move to Tokyo upon entering middle school. When he saw one of his classmates being bullied, he jumped in to help him. This happened again and again until he carved out a name for himself. Before he knew it, the people he'd helped were listening to his every order. They brought in their friends, and their friends brought in their friends. By thirteen, Masaomi was the leader of his own color gang, the Yellow Scarves.
While he and his gang were out on the streets one day, he met his soon-to-be girlfriend, Saki Mikajima. Not only did she so boldly approach his group but she knew his name even though they'd never met. Izaya Orihara promptly introduced himself as the one who had informed her, as well as her kinda-sorta guardian. Masaomi didn't like or trust Izaya, but he enjoyed being with Saki. Unfortunately, Saki had an unhealthy dependency on Izaya. Masaomi wanted to free her from that, insisting that if she knew that dependency was a flaw, she should fix it. He'd help her! It was after this that they began to date despite that gang rivalries were growing by the day.
Masaomi expected the conflicts to fit the usual pattern. They were delinquent gangs, a bunch of middle school kids. How much damage could they do? Instead, the older, crueler Blue Square played dirty. Masaomi admitted to watching over a hundred of his friends injured in one-sided fights. Saki suggested he take his problem to Izaya, just like she always did. Finally, he gave in.
Izaya's aid turned the tide wholy in Yellow Scarves' favor. He taught them new strategies and gave them valuable intel that had Blue Square running. Masaomi gradually forgot what had bothered him about the sly informant, becoming nearly as dependent on him as Saki was. Izaya seized his opportunity.
Saki approached Blue Square alone after Izaya told her that it would end the gang war and keep Masaomi safe. Shortly afterward, Masaomi got a call from their leader Izumii. The Blue Square members broke Saki's legs so her seething boyfriend could hear her screaming through the phone.
The leader of the Yellow Scarves threw his phone in anger but just as quickly dove for it again, frantically dialing Izaya's number. When there was no answer, he bolted out into the streets of Ikebukuro to save her himself. He continued to call Izaya all the while, but the informant never picked up. Just as Masaomi was getting close to where he knew they were holding Saki, his bravado, his determination, the adrenaline - it all left him simultaneously, replaced by a paralyzing fear. He froze, his feet glued to the sidewalk.
He was still standing there, drenched from the rain, when Kadota and his group of disgruntled former Blue Square members drove past to take Saki to Raira General Hospital.
Saki fell into a coma. Masaomi came to the hospital to see her, but while he stood at her bedside, Izaya crashed the solemn moment, adding insult to injury with professional ease. A lecture in twisted theology led to the conclusion that Masaomi's guilt would raise Saki onto a divine pedestal. She would become his god, the embodiment of his failure that would rule over him for the rest of his life. With those damning words buzzing in his ears, he watched Izaya leave. Saki eventually woke up and began her long recovery, but by then, Masaomi didn't have the guts to see her again.
Masaomi grew increasingly depressed and withdrawn. Having given up his leadership of the Yellow Scarves, he felt he'd lost his place in the world again, questioned whether he'd ever had one, and despite that he knew Izaya was the mastermind behind his grief, he blamed himself because his own actions were what sealed the deal.
Lost and in desperate need of any small comfort, he turned to internet chats with his old friend Mikado. During these online chats, Masaomi felt calm, like the world didn't have to be as harsh as he knew it to be. He left out everything about the gangs and his dangerous experiences, making Ikebukuro sound like an amazing and magical place. He was the ultimate PR spokesman for Raira Academy especially, and soon enough, he convinced Mikado to move to Ikebukuro so they could attend high school together.
When school started, Mikado and Masaomi were in different classes, but that certainly didn't stop them from meeting up before school, hanging out during lunch, and walking home together. After a few early encounters with shy girl Anri Sonohara, they happily absorbed her into their comfortable little trio.
During one of those early encounters, Mikado and Masaomi caught some nasty girls in the act of bullying Anri. Just as Mikado moved to intervene, Izaya showed up and pushed him into the open before scaring the bullies away himself. Masaomi was uncharacteristically quiet and subdued as he introduced his friends to his enemy, but still he didn't tell Mikado anything about the man other than that he was dangerous.
When Mikado asked about the Dollars shortly afterward, Masaomi went straight to Kadota for information as Kadota had since joined Dollars himself. There were rumors floating around the city that Dollars were similar to a color gang, and Mikado even mentioning it was enough to get Masaomi worried. He didn't get any useful information on them from Kadota, but at school, he presented Mikado with a list of people who could potentially be Dollars members. Masaomi dragged Mikado up to the roof with the intent to ask fellow classmate Takiguchi whether he was in the Dollars. Surprisingly, Takiguchi said that he was. They talked to him about it, and with that, Masaomi thought he'd managed to cure Mikado's curiosity.
Six months passed in this way. The trio of high school students enjoyed their carefree lives. Masaomi made a habit of intercepting a certain teacher who had his perverted eyes on Anri and eventually decided that he would give Mikado a handicap in their love triangle, pushing his friend toward admitting his feelings for Anri in typically outlandish ways.
Unfortunately, the growing tensions in Tokyo were ready to explode. Someone dubbed the Slasher was running around Ikebukuro and attacking random people with a katana, but Masaomi's inevitable downward spiral didn't begin until he learned that Anri had been a victim.
Anri was hospitalized, finally motivating Masaomi to enter Raira General Hospital. All Masaomi could see was a repeat of what had happened to Saki. He'd let it happen again. Because of that he also mustered up the courage to visit Saki for the first time in a year. Unable to apologize, he broke up with her instead.
Immediately after this visit, he accepted the Yellow Scarves' request that he return to lead them. His plan was to use Yellow Scarves' connections to get revenge on the Slasher for what he'd done to Anri. The rumor mill insisted that the Slasher was a member of Dollars, so Masaomi once again turned to Kadota. He insisted that he just wanted to talk to the leader of the Dollars. He didn't want to start another gang war. But as Kadota pointed out, they couldn't trust him completely because his subordinates didn't feel the same way. The gang had changed in the year Masaomi had been away - members were now older and more violent. Determined, Masaomi continued to press. When he told Kadota about Anri, the man gave him the phone number of someone who would know the identity of Dollars' leader.
It was Izaya's number, and the information broker happily told his client the truth: Mikado Ryuugamine was the founder of Dollars. Masaomi was shocked, understandably so, but he couldn't ask Mikado about it.
The situation was bad, but it became even worse when Anri sneaked into the gang's warehouse and discovered that Masaomi led the dangerous Yellow Scarves. The gang searched for the unknown intruder, but just as they were about to find her, the infamous Headless Rider, an urban legend in Ikebukuro of a headless motorcyclist, charged into the yard and prepared to drive her to safety. Horada threw metal piping at them despite Masaomi's orders against it, but Anri blocked it with Saika, and the two made their escape. Masaomi immediately realized the ramifications of this event. The Headless Rider was affiliated with Dollars. The fact that she saved the Slasher meant that the Slasher was affiliated with Dollars. There was now no way for him to hold back his gang. They would be itching to wipe out the Dollars completely.
When his gang discovered that Anri was, in fact, the Slasher who had supposedly injured her, it sent Masaomi over the edge as well. After a long and surreal chase, Masaomi snatched Anri's hand and pulled her into a secluded alleyway to keep Horada, one of his own men, from catching her. He lashed out at her, vaguely psychotic in his forcefulness, and accused her of shamelessly using him and Mikado. She slapped him and left.
He was utterly listless when Horada called to let him know he was "fired" from his own gang. Horada had found out that Masaomi's best friend was the leader of Dollars. There was now an execution order out on Masaomi's head, and he'd never be able to show his face in Ikebukuro again. In fact, Horada and Co. had even shot Shizuo Heiwajima, one of the strongest and most dangerous men in Ikebukuro, claiming that Masaomi Kida had ordered it. None of this made Masaomi angrier than when Horada exclaimed that he'd be going after Mikado's head.
The doubts Masaomi had held toward Mikado and Anri seemed ridiculous now. What if Horada attacked Mikado? What if he kidnapped Anri to get to Mikado? It didn't matter who Mikado and Anri were, Masaomi had to protect them at any cost. He dropped his phone and ran.
He barged into the gang base alone and unarmed. The majority of the Yellow Scarves were still scared of him, backing away with his every step forward. Masaomi announced his intention to kill Horada right there and then, and Horada ordered the gang to attack. They couldn't hold the former leader back. He had nearly reached Horada when he received a second critical hit to the head and fell. Horada may have shot him execution style if not for Anri slicing through the building's door and Mikado arriving on the back of the Headless Rider's motorcycle.
When the Yellow Scarves surrounded the intruders, ready to attack, an unexpected call rose up, and suddenly Kadota was revealed to have infiltrated the gang, just as Horada and a large number of Blue Square had infiltrated the Yellow Scarves while Masaomi had been away. Masaomi was dumbfounded, suffering from one concussion too many to do much critical thinking, but there was still work to be done. Now that he knew Horada was part of Blue Square, he pushed forward despite his injuries and punched the out-of-control delinquent in the face. The only reason Horada was still alive, he explained, was because Mikado and Anri didn't deserve to see a corpse.
All of his energy drained from him then, and he collapsed. Mikado ran to support him, and Anri followed. They shared heartfelt apologies and confessions, and Masaomi asked them to take him to Raira General Hospital because he had a girl waiting for him there. He then passed out from blood loss.
After Masaomi was treated, he regained consciousness and received an unexpected visitor in Saki Mikajima. While Masaomi had been fighting for his life, Saki had sold Izaya out to Simon. Apparently, she could also walk. Masaomi deducted that she had recovered some time before but pretended she hadn't so that Izaya could keep Masaomi tied down to Ikebukuro and use him as a pawn, even going so far as lying about how he'd already known. He finally apologized for not being able to save her and begged her to take him back. She did.
Once recovered, the two of them left Ikebukuro. Masaomi didn't so much as say goodbye to Mikado or Anri, but directly after he left, he joined Mikado's exclusive Dollars chatroom. In that way, he was able to keep in contact with his friends while still protected by a veil of anonymity.
Unfortunately, a sixteen year old high school dropout had very few career prospects. Masaomi and Saki needed to support themselves somehow. Yet again, Masaomi crawled back to Izaya despite his better judgement. The couple worked for the informant gathering information wherever he asked them to go. This lasted for several months.
When Izaya sent them on a sudden mission to a remote Northeastern village with no internet access, Masaomi grew increasingly anxious. Returning home did nothing to assuage his worries. He logged into the Dollars chatroom the moment he could, but he discovered that no one was on and that the chat archives had vanished.
"Maybe they all disappeared," Saki joked.
"Don't scare me," Masaomi laughed.
He convinced himself that his growing dread was just an overreaction and turned off the computer.
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 (if not their motivations) and tries hard to make people feel better about themselves. He wants a chance to be the hero, the good guy, a knight for all the princesses of the world. 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 make even the mundane fun and interesting. He has a certain charisma, an energy about him that can liven up a 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. In fact, after Masaomi drops out of high school and begins traveling with his girlfriend, Mikado tells him that he and Anri miss him, his classmates miss him, even the teacher is worried about him, and not to be discouraged because his parents don't. It's quite a statement.
In order to create that elusive place where he can belong, a place he lost when he moved to Ikebukuro and left his friend Mikado behind, he seeks out anyone who will have him. 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? 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 Masaomi's ultimate motivators. Though Izaya is the one who doesn’t answer his call for help, though Yellow Scarves’ rival gang are the ones who torture Saki, Masaomi Kida is the one who couldn’t save her. None of the obstacles in his path shift an ounce of blame away from himself. He allows Izaya to manipulate him, too drunk with his perceived victories to see the bigger picture, and when his defining moment comes, he freezes in fear, essentially leaving his girlfriend to die. With the nurturing power of his anxiety and doubt, the overwhelming guilt of these truths quickly spirals him 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 is a fierce but faulty protectiveness. Not a possessiveness but a misguided loyalty and backwards will to preserve his peace, even if his own actions destroy it in the process. 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 he alone must protect them. He takes it upon himself to watch out for problems on all sides and react accordingly, without informing those he's trying to protect.
This ties into one of Masaomi's key coping mechanisms: compartmentalization. He has trouble seeing himself as one whole person. Instead, he sees himself in mental segments. A great deal of his anxiety stems from worries about what others will think when they see a side of him they don’t usually see. In order to prevent that, Masaomi adapts to situations by essentially separating them from each other. He willfully splits his life into different "realities." In one reality, he is the failure flirt extraordinaire and street-wise best friend to Mikado and Anri; in another, he will punch one of his own followers across a warehouse floor for not following orders. He keeps each reality as separate from the other as possible, and this complete separation allows him to function under a different moral code in each reality without compromising the other reality. When the two worlds start to mix, so do his separate lifestyles, and that's when he makes his biggest mistakes.
Simply put, Masaomi can't be straight with his friends because if they knew what kind of person he was, they would undoubtedly hate him for it. He hates himself for it, after all. Even when he's finally willing to stop running and accept his mistakes, his logic behind it is that he made those mistakes because that's the kind of person he is. It's just as much condemnation as it is forgiveness. If he can hate himself so thoroughly, how can his friends 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 but in reality had recovered months 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 runs into a ridiculously powerful but kind man telling him he shouldn't have to kill or die in a place like Tokyo. Instead of ask for help, Masaomi jokes and laughs and rates the man's sushi restaurant until he can get away. 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 required for affection because if it was, he would have no one. Rather, he ends up allowing others excuses for their lies while giving himself no quarter. Anri and Mikado both hide things from him for the same reason that he hides things from them, but he is the one who doubted them, not the other way around, so he’s the only one at fault.
It's this sort of backwards thinking, twisting facts so that the blame lies with him, that brings about moments when he allows himself to brood or be serious.
Alone, he has little to distract himself from the claustrophobic atmosphere of 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. The only person he displays this kind of helpless brooding to 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 doesn't gain the respect necessary to lead a gang through pretty words. Despite the silly jokes, the insecurity - Masaomi is a fighter at his 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 dish he readily serves, his own unique bastardization of a 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.
Appearance:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1ZW4ZNe9wi0/TB7jEj_kfzI/AAAAAAAAAZ8/sSdfpLKKpug/s1600/Durarara+pic.jpg
Abilities:
Masaomi is a dumb teenage boy with no cool powers whatsoever, but it's notable that his intuition is highly developed. He reads people and situations, getting (aggravatingly vague) "bad feelings" or anxiety from clues that he can't otherwise piece together. This will likely never become an issue with Carvaka villains, however, because Masaomi is a dumb teenage boy and consistently disregards his own premonitions until it's too late.
▸SAMPLES:
(One sample may be a link to a post/log thread of decent length that's occurred in the last six months from another game, or from a meme/musebox if the setting is the same as what the character will be apped from and the thread provides a good example of characterization — i.e. no AU settings or overly cracky memes. The other sample must be written to take place in Carvaka's setting.)
First Person:
[There's a new face around, flashing its pearly white smile for all the end of the world to see. Someone has apparently decided that the destruction of everything he loves is nothing to be worried about. Or, rather, it's something not worth rehashing when the reminders already surround them every moment of every day.]
Calling all cute girls, calling all cute girls! I've got a super, hyper, mega important announcement for all cute girls!
[Masaomi allows for a suitable pause. He's being dramatic, after all, and the whole thing would just fall flat without perfect timing.]
Kida Masaomi has arrived! You're welcome!
[No, really. That's the announcement. Cheers.]
Third Person:
http://havenlogs.dreamwidth.org/295556.html?thread=78614404#cmt78614404