APPLICATION POST

[crystal_ballin]

Out-of-Character Information

Name: Chris
Are you over 15?: If you cut me in half, I'd almost be able to pass twice.
Time Zone: Central Time Zone
Personal Journal: sideburnpower, almost never updated anymore
Reliable Method of Contact: AIM: christhegillikin, PLURK: sideburnpower, TUMBLR: sideburnpower
Other characters in the game: Max (Advance Wars), Apple Kid (Earthbound), Bowser (Mario), Jock/Arcanine (Pokemon)
Link to slot request if 6th, 7th slot: Haha I remember having to apply for a third slot Back In The Day.

Tegaki:
Anything Else?: Grad student with crazy grad student schedule.

In-Character Information

Name: Hagakure Yasuhiro
Game/Series: Dangan Ronpa
Teacher/Student/Other: Student
Canon Point: Good ending end of game.
Age: 22
Grade Level/Class Taught/Job: Junior
Dorm or Living Arrangement: Needs a dorm room.

Personality:
Different. Hagakure is strange. There is no way around it. The boy just ain't right. He has an obsession with Out Of Place Artwork (OOPArt) and conspiracy theories. He doesn't know how to fit in, and doesn't seem to want to fit in. He is capable of spinning off on wild tangents on literally the most absurd theories about Sasquatches and Jersey Devils and Greys. He believes in aliens (but not ghosts, until he is confronted with the possibility of ghosts being real, at which point he totally believes in ghosts). Until he was forced to come into contact with a bunch of super talented other high school students (actually all three or more years his juniors, although he didn't act like the legal adult that he is comparably…) he'd never had any friends before.

Paranoid. He was a believer in conspiracy theories, hiding out from Yakuza moneylenders who he couldn't pay back, who was tossed into an incubator of conspiracy theories and death. This hasn't helped calm down his belief in conspiracy theories at all. His time spent at Hope's Peak has only increased his belief that There's Something Out There. The smallest things in the world will send him into total and utter shock. This might utterly consume his life if it weren't for that fact that he's…

Oblivious. 100% oblivious. He's not the brightest crayon in the box, and he doesn't spend much time in contemplation or serious thought. Unless directly confronted with something, he's not going to think about it. This is good. It's really the only thing that's kept him sane-ish, other than the fact that he's also...

Lazy. How many days has it been since he shaved? Several? Every day? Somehow? His hair is a giant mass of dreadlocks because it requires no washing or major upkeep once its started. And it's been going on for years. He's 20 and still somehow wearing a modified school uniform jacket as part of his ensemble?

Gullible. The problem is, combined with his conspiracy-theory and belief in aliens and sasquatches, he's a giant mark. If you have a get-rich-quick scheme he will fall for it. He'll believe almost anything you tell him.

Middle Management. Here's the thing. In the absence of a strong leader, Hagakure will take charge, but never have any ideas of his own. His taking charge will consist of him telling other people to do something that someone else suggested earlier. Stay-the-course. He's meant for middle management. He realizes that in emergencies, somebody should step up, and he sees himself as an adult, so he's willing to step up to. . . have no original thoughts of his own whatsoever.

Psychic. He can see the future with 30% accuracy. The one thing that he believes in more than anything else are his own psychic visions. That he knows are only 30% accurate. It's. . . well. Remember what I said about him being oblivious and gullible and different? Yeah. He's also a semi-devout Buddhist/Shintoist. I say semi-devout, because he only cares when confronted with difficulties or sudden, unexpected pleasures.

Friendly? For all of these flaws, Hagakure is generally a nice guy. He does everything possible to avoid conflict, and this means trying to find a way to get along. He doesn't always know the right way (asking Naegi to sell him some organs for cheap to pay off the yakuza???? Hagakure??????) but he at least tries.

Backstory:
Hagakure grew up in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture. His father was a commercial fisher, his mother a housewife. His parents were both very traditional Japanese parents. There are clues to this in his appearance, and in his handwriting. Hagakure is praised for his penmanship; there is generally only one way for this to occur, and that's for the person to have taken calligraphy lessons. Children don't go to calligraphy lessons for fun, they go because mom and dad make them for their benefit. Additionally, taking all aspects of his clothing in, Hagakure has the unfortunate appearance looking like Hachi, the 80-year-old shopkeeper from Advance Wars wearing a coat. Seriously. No 'modern, hip' young person would ever think to wear something like this, yet Hagakure finds that he needs to wear clothing befitting an aging shopkeeper. This all points to the sort of upbringing that, of all things in the world, Ishimaru had as well.

This explains the strange points of affinity that Hagakure has with Ishimaru (Bento boxed lunches, fundoshi, they are literally the only two characters who enjoy that hideous comedy DVD, they are the only two who do not hate the prank-call phone) – they both grew up in socially stunting, extremely traditional, authoritarian households. This lasted for Hagakure until he turned 12, about to enter Jr. High, when an extremely large dictionary fell off of a shelf during an earthquake and hit him on the head. He blacked out, and when he woke up he saw things in his mind. It was the future. Or something close to it, anyway. He started seeing things that were sometimes the future.

It totally changed his life. His predictions had a 20-30% success rate. Depending on how you view psychics, that's either really great or really awful. We're going with really great here, because as it turns out, Hagakure is seeing the future. The problem is, he's also clouded up with a lot of alternate realities at the same time. Whoops. He became obsessed with aliens and not-supernatual-but-might-as-well-be cryptids like sasquatch, the Jersey Devil and kappa.

He started attaching himself to local shrines to sell fortunes at. He was better at it than most, at the very least. Also, to protect his head from further bumps that might make the fortunetelling go away, he started growing his hair out. And eventually, he put it into dreads. It gave him an aura of otherness, he thought, anyway.

He made a name for himself, to the point that he became that most glorious of all things – trendy. He became so trendy that he could charge absurd fees for his predictions – hundreds of thousands of yen for a single session. His parents didn't know what to do with him anymore, but after graduating Jr. High, he emancipated himself and went to live on his own because he didn't need their stupid rules anymore, and they didn't understand him, and he was amazing and didn't they see his hair???? He was done with them forever.

He enrolled into high school on his own in Tokyo (if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere), but ended up dropping out halfway through his second year. He did this because he'd borrowed some money off of a yakuza loan shark that he was unable to pay back. He went underground for three years, trying to scrape together enough money to pay back the loan shark, but failing, because of his obsession with OOPArt. He bought the stupidest crap in the entire world. And also videogames. Lots of videogames. He's a slacker at heart. He spent the majority of his time in hiding living with his maternal grandmother back in Aomori. He wasn't going back to his parents, though, because they didn't get him. Grandma raised chickens and kept parakeets. He spent a lot of time with the birds. Too much time with the birds.

One night, aliens stole half of his hamburger. They left the half that was actually pork that had been mixed in with the beef.

After three years of hiding from the yakuza, he finally entered into Hope's Peak Academy at the ripe old age of 20, mostly because everybody knew that if you went there you were Set For Life. So, he could charge a million yen for a prediction after graduating from here, and pay off the yakuza crazy fast. If he didn't waste it all on junk (which he would.)

School was school. He did what he was supposed to, and made some friends with the other students, even though he was much older than the rest of them. Really, he was a stunted 12-year-old on the inside, still. So, even though he could shave (though he was too lazy to bother), he was far less adult than his classmates.

Problems occurred a year into school when The Whatever Terrible Name You Translate It As happened. He agreed to be locked up in the school forever, but as they moved through the process of doing this, it became clear that Something Was Wrong On The Inside, Too. But, then everyone lost their memories. And he woke up in a school with a bunch of people he'd never seen before, and was forced to play Murderchildren to be let out of the school.

He didn't believe it at first, but once he was confronted with the reality after Maizono's death, he didn't take it well. Really, Hagakure didn't take much of anything well. Thankfully, his insipidity saved him from more mental strain than was utterly necessary. He was mostly useless during the whole ordeal, although he proved surprisingly apt at taking apart a Monokuma robot and in setting up a digital TV antenna (It's just like the one his grandma had; he spent a lot of time watching TV at her house…). He also expressed a love for chickens and invited Naegi back to his room to try to buy his body organs off of him to help pay off the yakuza loan. He thought Kirigiri was a ghost for a really long time (doesn't believe in the occult; totally believes in the occult). He talked Naegi into taking a peek of all of the girls in the bath. He was locked up in a fake robot suit and shoved into a locker for hours. He hit Sakura on the head with a bottle in a fit of panic. Really, he was useless.

Eventually everyone got out of the school and walked out into the Brave New World that awaited them. He also walked out.

Hagakure left the glistering prison of Hope's Peak Academy at the end of his personal trials with his fellow survivors. And they entered into a world that had spent the past year hemorrhaging lives, hope and resources. He thought that he could find a way to make a life in this world by being one of those brilliant examples of hope; Hagakure, however, possesses few actually useful skills. He ended up getting lost in the strange new world, and tried to divine his way to somewhere where his friends were; in that strange way that FDC has of being in the center of everywhere and nowhere at once, he entered into a ruined building and came out the other end in another school. He was met by a giant hand who enrolled him on the spot, after spouting something about oranges, and is freaking out over the prospect of being forced back into school again because school is where you go to die.

Anything Else?:
- Hagakure is actually psychic. For reals. But he's only right 30% of the time. The other times, his visions are from alternate realities – he and Naegi do share the same mother for their children in the reality where they failed to escape the school. If tasked with creating some sort of traditional ward against spirits he could probably actually do it, even though he doesn't believe in the occult. Except for when he does.

- Hagakure is mentally incapable of using a person's full name. No matter who he is dealing with, he will either use a nickname or some other diminutive of their name. In Japanese, this worked out to ending everyone's name with –chi. In this incarnation, he will be calling people names such as: "Ishi" "Naegs" "Hina" "Ogre" "Togs" and "Chiro" or whatever the heck spills out of his unfathomable mouth when he has another Turn.

- Hagakure speaks with a Tokoku dialect, which has been translated as ending everything with 'right?' or 'dude.' I prefer 'dude.'

- Hagakure has the worst sense of humor.

- Hagakure is quite an impressive collection of fake OOPArt objects. At least most of them are fake… At least he once had them… They're sort of all destroyed now.

- Hagakure, in addition to his love of OOPArt, also has a liking for traditional 'manly' Japanese things, which might be surprising, if not for his upbringing. While he's cast most of his upbringing aside, the love for traditional manly accoutrements – swords, fundoshi – did not leave him.

- Hagakure studied calligraphy as a child for years, the end result being that he has absolutely beautiful handwriting.

- Hagakure loves birds and old-school videogames. Which is interesting, considering where he's going to. The videogames bit, not the birds bit.

- Hagakure's favorite television program is The X-Files, which used to air when he was a child.

In-Character 1st person sample:
WHY AM I IN ANOTHER SCHOOL? NAEGS, DUDE, HELP. I DON'T WANT TO KILL ANYBODY. I DON'T UNDERSTAND. THERE WAS A GIANT HAND. IS THAT MONOHAND? I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH SCHOOL FOREVER, DUDE.

Help me. Somebody help me. I already went to high school twice. I'm twenty-two, dude. I don't need this in my life. DESPAIR IS MORE SCHOOL. At least I can breathe the air alright. And nobody's wearin' a Monokuma mask.

In-Character 3rd person sample:
Hagakure saw his first ghost within fifteen minutes of arriving at school, when into his room walked Mondo and Ishimaru.

His reaction was less-than-pleasant.

"DUDE, YOU'RE BOTH DEAD!" he shrieked as he ran out of the room, with his hands clamped down on the prayer beads around his wrist, and waving his arms madly about. Around the corner he saw Sakura. "O-OGRE'S GHOST. BACK FROM THE DEAD FOR REVENGE BECAUSE I HIT HER ON THE HEAD. OH GREAT LORD BUDDHA AMIDA, SAVE ME."

He ran further down the hallway until he found the men's room. He'd be safe in there. Safe forever. He'd never come out and the ghosts would never find him.

And that's when he met Chihiro washing his hands at the sink.

Hagakure shrieked and fainted, his crazy hair ending up in the floor-length urinals along one of the walls.