ryoji mochizuki

PLAYER INFORMATION
Name: Tricks
Timezone: PST
Personal Journal: pantsu
Player Contact: AIM/Plurk/Gmail
Characters in Game (previously too): previously Kankri Vantas, Beforan flavor

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Ryoji Mochizuki aka Thanatos aka The Appriser
Canon: Persona 3 (PSP version)
Gender: Male
Age: 10 ageless it is complicated but let us say human standards don't exactly apply to him. That said, his appearance is that of a boy in his late teens, so let's go with 16 or 17 for convenience's sake.
Species: Death. The literal thing. He is similar to beings called Shadows which are formed from stray human thoughts and emotions, but in his current form he's mostly functionally human.
Canon Point: New Year's Eve, 2009, just before midnight
History:
In 1999 Japan, in a city called Iwatodai built around the manmade Tatsumi Port Island, the economically powerful Nanjo Group was conducting a grand and dangerous experiment. They had discovered the existence of beings called Shadows, and research on them suggested that they could hold the power even to alter space and time. Under Kouetsu Kirijo's guidance, they built a high school above the lab where the experiment was conducted, in order to more easily harvest the human psyche Shadows were formed from; but in these later years of the project, Kouetsu had become a nihilist, and intended to use Shadows to bring an end to human existence rather than for his own material profit. Shadows were grouped into 12 alignments based on the major Arcana of the Tarot, but Kouetsu and his researchers successfully fused a mass of Shadows to form one of the 13th Arcana, Death, who would summon the end of the world. One researcher, recognizing the danger, managed to break the mass of Shadows apart and leave Death isolated from most of its power and unable to cause the apocalypse; but as it could not be destroyed, it was sealed inside a young girl, hopefully to never awaken and reunite with its other pieces again.

That Shadow would later become Ryoji Mochizuki, but for ten years it slept inside Minako Arisato, unaware even of who or what it was. When the orphaned Minako was transferred to school in Iwatodai again for her junior year of high school, its proximity to the missing pieces of itself stirred it into becoming conscious again, though still unable to remember almost anything, and directing its host to make it whole again. Death now took the form of a young boy and named itself Pharos, but he could still only appear to Minako. As Minako sought out and fought against the twelve massive Shadows that had been separated from Death, one by one, Pharos became more and more conscious of himself as an entity, and more and more curious about the girl who was his host. As his personality expanded, so did his desire to express himself like a human would, and befriend the person that such constant intimacy had made so dear to him. Only when his final piece returned to him did he realize that his role was to end her existence, along with her entire world.

But having formed into a person of his own, Death now tried to reject that role. Instead he took human form so he could finally meet Minako and relate to her as all her other friends would, and forced himself to forget that he was in actuality a Shadow. Calling himself Ryoji Mochizuki now, he arranged things so he could attend school with her, and insinuated himself among her friends. Though he didn't remember himself or Minako, he could still feel the bond they had shared, and it led him to seek her out and become closer to her again. It wasn't long before they started dating and even fell in love. But as they spent more time together, the part of Ryoji that he had tried so hard to reject started reacting to her presence and leaking through. By the end of his first month as a human, Ryoji was an emotional wreck and unsure even of his own existence. Finally his power broke through and pushed him into a world and time inhabited only by Shadows and those able to fight them, and once he had his bearings he remembered everything about who he was and what he was going to do. When one of Minako's friends and comrades, a mechanical maiden created to fight Shadows named Aigis, found him and attempted to neutralize him, he was unable to talk her down, and involuntarily his power reacted to the threat and damaged her so badly she was nearly destroyed.

After that, he told Minako and her friends everything. He was too powerful to be sealed even by himself, and couldn't see any way to prevent himself from fulfilling his role and summoning a being called Nyx to bring the Fall of mankind. All he could think to do was offer them the choice to die a little later and without fearing the end. Because he and Minako had taken on aspects of each other through their time as a shared being, she would be able to kill him in his human form without provoking his power to defend him, and in doing so seal his power and the Shadows for a few more months; but her friends would lose their ability to fight the Shadows and even their memories of their time together as a result. They would live normal, peaceful lives until the moment Nyx came to bring their end. Knowing the enormous power of Nyx and his own failure to restrain her, Ryoji himself had despaired and thought this was the only thing he could give his friends and his lover now, an easy and peaceful passing.

But after giving them the month of December to think about it, Minako and her teammates refused his offer and decided instead to fight Nyx, however futile it might be. As much as it hurt Ryoji to think about his friends dying afraid and in pain, he respected their decision and did his best to give them advice on fighting her instead, down to the place and time where they needed to be when she descended. The thing he found too painful to tell them was that by then, Nyx would have made him into her avatar, and so they would be fighting against a being that was him but still was set on ending their lives. He told them that he was going to become something else at the moment the New Year arrived, something unrecognizable as who he had been, but didn't tell them what his final role would be.

Finally he bade them all farewell and good luck. He gave Minako a ring that he had bought during their time on a school trip together, asking her to hold on to it for him and remember who he was, so that maybe he could stand his own helplessness in his new form. Then he left their dormitory, not wanting them to see him turn irreversibly from their friend into a monster that would be their adversary.
Personality:
Probably the very first thing anyone notices upon meeting Ryoji is that he is a relentless and utterly shameless flirt. He will ask out pretty much any girl given half a chance, and so on first blush a lot of people judge him as an incorrigible playboy who is only after shallow gratification. That's really not his style, though. Instead Ryoji is simply an extremely enthusiastic sort of boy who wants to experience everything the world has to offer and make as many people as possible happy while he does so. He's not actually flirting to obtain sex; rather, he's doing it because it's fun and he wants the people around him to have fun too. Once someone tells him they aren't interested, he's quick to ease into a much more platonically friendly kind of interaction, where his flirtations are something he does on autopilot rather than specifically pressing them to go out with them. Similarly, when he dates girls he's pretty clear that it's only a date, not a serious relationship. To be honest, he would probably be just as flirtatious with boys if he weren't living in a heteronormative society as well; but since that kind of interaction is kept to opposite sexes as the norm, he just sort of automatically assumes that's what you do, and hasn't yet realized that he could consider boys an option for his "princesses."

That he hasn't figured that out in his late teens would seem strange if he were a normal boy, but he's not. Though he is at first unaware of it, Ryoji has only very briefly led an existence as a teenager in his own form, and in actuality he is a supernatural entity whose coming heralds the end of the world. Since he was alive inside of the Persona 3 protagonist (the female version, Minako, in this case) for ten years, he has based his mode of interacting with the world completely on his impressions of her life rather than his own experience. Minako is very social and enjoys the company of a lot of hormonal teenagers going on or thinking about a lot of dates, so of course that was one of the features of human existence he latched on to. His strange existence is also responsible for the way he essentially throws himself into anything entertaining that he can think of; he subconsciously knows that his existence is limited and the world he's experiencing will soon no longer be there, so he wants to enjoy as much of it as he can while he can. His time in Minako's psyche has given him a love of and fascination with the world that makes him want to make good memories of it at a frantic pace.

This conflict between the reason for his existence and his attachment to the human world causes Ryoji a lot of anguish, even before he remembers what he is. Throughout the time he spends in Minako's company in the month of November, he becomes more and more contemplative and melancholy, realizing that every time he's enjoying himself he only becomes more heartbroken about something he can't quite understand yet. Once he does awaken to his power, it's too much for him to bear. He spends most of his remaining time as a human isolating himself from all the people he became close to because of his overwhelming guilt at knowing what he'll bring upon them.

But even with all that pain and guilt eating at him, Ryoji's first thought is for the comfort and happiness of those he loves. He offers Minako and her friends, the only people who know about the impending apocalypse, a chance to erase all their memories of that revelation so they can go about their normal lives and live in peace until the end comes - by cutting short his human life, and the experiences he's held so precious. At the same time, his offer of that choice also shows that Ryoji is a bit of a fatalist. He's ruthlessly practical about the frailty of human life, and because he's been unable to resist taking up his role in ending humanity, he doesn't hold out that there's any real chance for humans to stop him and the being he was born from. If he's convinced that a situation is inevitable, he gives up on changing it and instead sets about doing what he can to make the situation as easy as possible, even if that means bringing more pain on himself or doing something monstrous to those he cares for.

So that's Ryoji: obscenely flirtatious, overly enthusiastic, universally social, naive in the extreme, as considerate of others as he can be, stubbornly self-sacrificing, and inclined to blame himself for everything. He is basically a pile of emotions that he doesn't know what to do with. And he's also Death. WELCOME TO PERSONA.

Abilities/Weaknesses:
Ryoji's powers are not made entirely clear, aside from a few. Obviously he's not going to regain the APOCALYPSE NOW power, because that would be too serious in a silly sex game. He can also take on the form of a huge masked monster ringed by floating coffins. And fly. And since he was able to get himself enrolled in high school despite not actually, you know, existing, and also considering the nature of the choice he offers the heroes, he probably has powers of mind manipulation or at least memory alteration.

During the final fight with him, he is able to use all elemental abilities common to the game, so think mega spellcaster. He also can shield himself impenetrably with an ability that will rebound any force used against it back on the user, but he can't move or take any action affecting the outside world when he does it. When harmed enough, he can change his alignment and regenerate entirely with different strengths and weaknesses. LOOK HE'S THE APOCALYPSE HE'S KINDA OP OKAY

Being the immortal, invincible bringer of the end of the world, he doesn't really have weaknesses in terms of his abilities, or even physical weaknesses. In his human form and without his powers immediately available, he can experience pain and suchlike, but he probably still can't really die or be permanently harmed. Instead his most vulnerable spot is his emotions. Ryoji is constantly wracked with guilt and inner conflict about what he is not falling in line with who he is, and that can definitely be used against him. He can be emotionally manipulated rather easily, especially since he's so inexperienced with feeling things like a person does. Also, if Nyx ever pops up in any way, he can't do anything against her and will basically be her puppet regardless of anything else, because essentially he's a part of her.

THAT ALL BEING SAID, I probably won't be going for most of that stuff because who needs most of it in a silly sex game? But that's at least what's available to him. SINCE YOU ASKED AND ALL.
RP Samples:
Test Drive thread

Third Person:

It was kind of strange to be thinking about finding work. When Ryoji had started being Ryoji he'd just sort of popped into existence with everything he needed to live comfortably - money, clothes, hotel room, school arrangements, all of that. Now, having decided against signing the Mistress's contract (she was a lovely lady and all, it just didn't sound like anything he'd be particularly interested in), he was having to do all of that himself instead of just making the world shape itself around his needs.

It was exciting! Like an adventure or something. It certainly wasn't like anything he'd experienced before. The phallic decorations everywhere, for example. He'd never have seen those back in Iwatodai. Humans really did have all kinds of places and people!

A sign caught his eye as he ambled along the streets (so free of concrete!). A night of passionate romance awaits you! it promised. Another sign on the same building proclaimed, Find the fateful encounter you've been waiting for! Above the door was a large sign with the title Reasonably Priced Love. He lingered at the doorway a moment and noticed a tiny, hand-lettered sheet of paper in one of the windows saying, Now accepting new applicants. Room + board provided. Inquire within!

Well, that sounded right up his alley. And to think, he'd never thought that he could just date girls all day as a career! He pulled open the door and headed inside with a spring in his step and a bright smile on his face.

Inside it was comfortably warm, with a sweet, smoky scent drifting through the air that made his head feel a little fuzzy. The wallpaper was patterned with red flowers on a pink background; the furniture in the rather well-sized entryway (and waiting room? It kind of looked like that) was all upholstered in a deep crimson. A bored-looking woman lounged around at the desk, and several men (and a few women) sitting around the room looked at him furtively and then hurriedly away again.

"Welcome to Reasonably Priced Love, where we make all your dreams come true," the woman recited in a lazy monotone as he walked up to her, not taking her eyes off what appeared to be some sort of accounting books. "How can I fulfill your wildest fantasy today."

"Oh- no, I'm not here for that!" Ryoji said cheerfully. "I saw you were hiring and was wondering if you still had that position open."

Now she did look at him, with mild interest and some appraisal in her eyes. "Huh. That's different. You don't look the type. And why should I hire some kid waltzing in off the street? You don't look like you even brought any kind of reference. This isn't some low-budget hole-in-the-wall that takes just anyone."

"Oh, I understand that," he chirped. "If you're promising passion and romance you can't have people walk away disappointed! So I thought I might offer you a night out on the town myself, and you can judge for yourself."

"I'm too old for you to be cozening me like that," she told him flatly.

"No, I mean it!" he said earnestly, and plucked a flower he'd picked from the roadside from his lapel to offer her. "You're a woman in full bloom, you shouldn't disparage yourself that way. You look like you work so hard, I'm sure you can use the night off. I saw a lovely little cottage-restaurant down the way with an amazing view from its upper deck, what do you say? When was the last time you took a little time just for yourself?" He gave her his most warm, sincere and inviting smile. "You deserve a little fun."

She stared at him for a long, long moment. "What's your name?" she asked finally.

"Ryoji Mochizuki, ma'am," he replied. "And might I have yours?"

"It's Ethel. Look, Ryoji, do you know what kind of service we're offering?"

"Sure!" He nodded eagerly. "It says on the signs. A chance to experience romance and companionship and intimate adventure. The art of bringing a smile to someone's face and making a warm memory for them to keep close to their heart!"

She stared some more. At last she let out a sigh. "I just know I'm going to regret this. Well, Judith was saying we needed to expand into other markets. Fine, you get a trial run for the week. But you'd better shine, boy, because it's the only chance you're getting."

"Great!" He smiled. "So, Ethel-chan, how about that date?"