Hiroshi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
all_onis_are_true) wrote2012-11-13 10:21 pm
all_onis_are_true) wrote2012-11-13 10:21 pm
(no subject)
Player Name: Badge
Personal Journal:dragomorph
Other Characters Played: Phoenix Wright, Ran Yakumo
Character Name: Hiroshi
Canon Ao Oni
Personality: Hiroshi's public face, the one he cultivates the most, is that of a calm, collected scientist. He maintains that all things can be proven through science, and things that break those natural laws cannot logically exist. He pursues knowledge, and eschews those who give in to the temptation to subscribe to superstition. This can make him seem somewhat cold and haughty as he writes off the supernatural as "stupid." He also has a sardonic streak, which just adds to his unapproachability. This is the sort of person he wants to be, although he's not as unflappable as he'd like to pretend he is. And even if he doesn't say it aloud, he DID like being with his friends.
However, this personality has become even more fragile in the face of what happened in the mansion. The truth is that he relies just as much on a gut instinct as he does on cold, logical fact, which is in reality what saved his life in the mansion. He tries to hide it, of course, since that's just not what scientists ARE in his mind. But place him into a high-stress situation, and he becomes just as emotional and irrational as any normal person, albeit one who keeps enough sense in him to hide and not just to run. Furthermore, he suffers from survivor's guilt, the knowledge that only he alone survived, that there were situations where he could have done, SHOULD have done more for his friends, but didn't. This guilt manifests now in a strong, occasionally self-destructive desire to protect anybody he becomes close to. He won't fail anybody again.
He still tries to maintain faith in science, but it's easy for it to slip, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary of the existence of strange forces. His dedication to the natural world has become less of a certainty and more of a crutch; he fervantly tries to rewrite the events of the mansion in his head in a manner that makes sense, to the point where he was at one point even willing to entertain the possibility that he is insane, and that he quite possibly killed his friends himself, rather than face the horrible possibility that there are in fact monsters out there that can appear from nowhere, conform to no natural biological structure, and who disposed of every friend he had in cruel and callous fashion. Even surrounded by strange new things at the Crossroads (and one ever so charming Nightmare who managed to pluck the thing's face right out of his brain), he's still not entirely convinced of his own sanity.
There's a very good reason for his doubts. The whole time in the mansion, he'd experienced a strong feeling of deja vu. Once he was no longer in danger, he began to realize that there was something off about his memory: he had absolutely no certainly of what actually occurred anymore. The truth is, he remembers every single iteration of events as clearly as if they were the one true memory. Memories where everybody lived, where people died in different orders. Where the mansion was laid out differently, and where different monsters threatened him. Where even he isn't exactly the person he knows himself to be now. There are little constants here and there -- where he finds his first keys, for example, or that heart-stopping moment in the hidden jail cell. But that just makes it worse, because it confirms that they are, in fact, all what happened in the mansion at that time. This only further convinces him of his own insanity, and increases the degree to which he attempts to deny that there had been a monster. No sane guy would write several versions of the same event in his own mind so clearly... right?
History: (Something important to note before I start: Ao Oni, with perhaps the exception of 1.0, has little to no background information about anything. The kids have personalities which are hinted at, and they give a few details about what brought them to the mansion on occasion, but beyond that any details are a blank slate. Hiroshi then ends up being about 90% the creation of whoever plays him, so bear in mind that most of this is not official canon by any means.
Hiroshi Yamane is the son of a man with a strong disdain for the supernatural, the result both of his strong belief in science and a revolt against a superstitious village he thought of as perpetuating ignorance. Though young Hiroshi feared the monsters under his bed, he soon found himself taking on his father's ideas, dismissing anything that fell outside the realm of science as nonsense -- which included things that go bump in the dark.
His father made sure Hiroshi focused as hard as he could on his studies, often to the detriment of other things. This suited Hiroshi just fine; he was going to be a scientist like his father some day, and aside from watching movies and shows on occasion that featured prominent scientist characters, he generally didn't socialize much.
When his family moved to a new town, Hiroshi got the attention of Takuro, a brash young youth with a fearless, occasionally mean-spirited streak. Deciding to drag this kid out of his shell -- perhaps he saw something nobody else did -- he made it a point to become Hiroshi's friend, even going so far as to fend off anybody who dared to mock his scientific friend. For that reason, Takuro held a special place in Hiroshi's heart as a friend, even if he tried not to let it on too much. Over time, he began to warm to Takuro's friends as well, Takeshi and Mika. Things were actually pretty good.
One night changed all that forever.
It was Takeshi's idea. There was a mansion at the edge of town, supposedly infested by monsters, but nobody had actually dared to check it out. Takuro thought it was a neat idea as well. Mika just went because Takuro was going. And Hiroshi? Well, his friends were going, and it's not like he actually believed in monsters anyway. It would just be a fun, maybe slightly scary night with friends.
Of course Takeshi began to wuss out as soon as they arrived. But still they entered. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of their lives. By the time the dawn rose, only one friend emerged to tell the tale: Hiroshi, who had spent the night chased by blue monsters, some of whom he'd once called friends. Nothing's been quite the same since. Not even his own linear reality...
Setting Info: Part of the trouble with a game like Ao Oni is that it is an extremely intimate game. There's very little we ever find out about the outside world aside from the very brief glimpses obtained in a few of the versions (specifically, 1.0 and 5.0). In general, it is just Earth as we know it. However, it is a world where one cannot assume that rumors about monsters in mansions are just weird scare tactics. The white mansion is solid proof of that -- and rumor has it that onis may have popped up in other forms, in other times, in other places. Whether or not this is the case is impossible to verify. After all, one timeline isn't necessarily the same as another...
Canon Point: Post-game in all instances. For the most convenience, assume that 6.0 is the valid timeline once travel to his world becomes stabilized.
Abilities/Powers: He has no natural powers, although he's quite intelligent and astute with puzzles.
Intended Guild: Order of Scholarly Research
Notes/Other Info: Bear with me, this gets confusing.
Hiroshi is an odd case that developed as a result of overthinking about the meta-game of Ao Oni and its development cycle. The thing with Ao Oni is that there are usually pretty drastic changes between iterations. While there are some consistencies, other things may change, like house shape, Oni AI and appearances, orders of death (if death occurs at all) and even, in the most drastic instance between 1.0 and later versions, who's in the starting party. (It is worth noting this drastic change is actually important to my headcanon backstory as to how Hiroshi gets to be the way he is, but that won't be explored until later.)
Basically, if one played one version of Ao Oni, and then goes and plays another version, one gains an expectation of how things SHOULD go, which can get shattered when things don't go exactly as expected. Hiroshi, in nearly every iteration, is essentially a blank slate aside from his comments about scientific feasibility at the very beginning of the game, and is otherwise just an entity people can project their own personality on -- about as close to a silent protagonist as one can get without actually being silent. He in-game functions under the idea that the player IS essentially Hiroshi, which means the feelings of deja vu the player experiences is also what Hiroshi experiences. Ergo, he technically experiences every version in some form or another, and only later fits the pieces together to remember each continuity as as whole.
In an explanation more fitting to the diegesis of the game, it's like this: Many, many timelines exist where Hiroshi and his friends go into the mansion. Hiroshi survives in every single one of them. Shortly after each experience, he begins remembering every OTHER iteration of the game as well, and potentially instances that don't actually exist as a physical game. In short, he's cursed with having experienced not just his own experience in the mansion, but the experiences of every OTHER version of him, as if they are a sole entity across timelines. This is also why, until he gets smacked with solid evidence otherwise -- which, sadly for Hiroshi, usually happens within the first couple of weeks of any RP he's in -- he tries to rationalize it as a sign of personally developing madness rather than entertain the notion that there are monsters that only he ever seems to be able to escape from over, and over, and over, and over again. In other words, Hiroshi has awareness of the events, but only as he experiences them from his side of the fourth wall. There's no "someone is controlling me" narrative in his story.
In reality, Hiroshi was not originally the one to experience this...
Sample Post: http://planar-crossroads.dreamwidth.org/567.html?thread=214839#cmt214839
Personal Journal:
dragomorphOther Characters Played: Phoenix Wright, Ran Yakumo
Character Name: Hiroshi
Canon Ao Oni
Personality: Hiroshi's public face, the one he cultivates the most, is that of a calm, collected scientist. He maintains that all things can be proven through science, and things that break those natural laws cannot logically exist. He pursues knowledge, and eschews those who give in to the temptation to subscribe to superstition. This can make him seem somewhat cold and haughty as he writes off the supernatural as "stupid." He also has a sardonic streak, which just adds to his unapproachability. This is the sort of person he wants to be, although he's not as unflappable as he'd like to pretend he is. And even if he doesn't say it aloud, he DID like being with his friends.
However, this personality has become even more fragile in the face of what happened in the mansion. The truth is that he relies just as much on a gut instinct as he does on cold, logical fact, which is in reality what saved his life in the mansion. He tries to hide it, of course, since that's just not what scientists ARE in his mind. But place him into a high-stress situation, and he becomes just as emotional and irrational as any normal person, albeit one who keeps enough sense in him to hide and not just to run. Furthermore, he suffers from survivor's guilt, the knowledge that only he alone survived, that there were situations where he could have done, SHOULD have done more for his friends, but didn't. This guilt manifests now in a strong, occasionally self-destructive desire to protect anybody he becomes close to. He won't fail anybody again.
He still tries to maintain faith in science, but it's easy for it to slip, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary of the existence of strange forces. His dedication to the natural world has become less of a certainty and more of a crutch; he fervantly tries to rewrite the events of the mansion in his head in a manner that makes sense, to the point where he was at one point even willing to entertain the possibility that he is insane, and that he quite possibly killed his friends himself, rather than face the horrible possibility that there are in fact monsters out there that can appear from nowhere, conform to no natural biological structure, and who disposed of every friend he had in cruel and callous fashion. Even surrounded by strange new things at the Crossroads (and one ever so charming Nightmare who managed to pluck the thing's face right out of his brain), he's still not entirely convinced of his own sanity.
There's a very good reason for his doubts. The whole time in the mansion, he'd experienced a strong feeling of deja vu. Once he was no longer in danger, he began to realize that there was something off about his memory: he had absolutely no certainly of what actually occurred anymore. The truth is, he remembers every single iteration of events as clearly as if they were the one true memory. Memories where everybody lived, where people died in different orders. Where the mansion was laid out differently, and where different monsters threatened him. Where even he isn't exactly the person he knows himself to be now. There are little constants here and there -- where he finds his first keys, for example, or that heart-stopping moment in the hidden jail cell. But that just makes it worse, because it confirms that they are, in fact, all what happened in the mansion at that time. This only further convinces him of his own insanity, and increases the degree to which he attempts to deny that there had been a monster. No sane guy would write several versions of the same event in his own mind so clearly... right?
History: (Something important to note before I start: Ao Oni, with perhaps the exception of 1.0, has little to no background information about anything. The kids have personalities which are hinted at, and they give a few details about what brought them to the mansion on occasion, but beyond that any details are a blank slate. Hiroshi then ends up being about 90% the creation of whoever plays him, so bear in mind that most of this is not official canon by any means.
Hiroshi Yamane is the son of a man with a strong disdain for the supernatural, the result both of his strong belief in science and a revolt against a superstitious village he thought of as perpetuating ignorance. Though young Hiroshi feared the monsters under his bed, he soon found himself taking on his father's ideas, dismissing anything that fell outside the realm of science as nonsense -- which included things that go bump in the dark.
His father made sure Hiroshi focused as hard as he could on his studies, often to the detriment of other things. This suited Hiroshi just fine; he was going to be a scientist like his father some day, and aside from watching movies and shows on occasion that featured prominent scientist characters, he generally didn't socialize much.
When his family moved to a new town, Hiroshi got the attention of Takuro, a brash young youth with a fearless, occasionally mean-spirited streak. Deciding to drag this kid out of his shell -- perhaps he saw something nobody else did -- he made it a point to become Hiroshi's friend, even going so far as to fend off anybody who dared to mock his scientific friend. For that reason, Takuro held a special place in Hiroshi's heart as a friend, even if he tried not to let it on too much. Over time, he began to warm to Takuro's friends as well, Takeshi and Mika. Things were actually pretty good.
One night changed all that forever.
It was Takeshi's idea. There was a mansion at the edge of town, supposedly infested by monsters, but nobody had actually dared to check it out. Takuro thought it was a neat idea as well. Mika just went because Takuro was going. And Hiroshi? Well, his friends were going, and it's not like he actually believed in monsters anyway. It would just be a fun, maybe slightly scary night with friends.
Of course Takeshi began to wuss out as soon as they arrived. But still they entered. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of their lives. By the time the dawn rose, only one friend emerged to tell the tale: Hiroshi, who had spent the night chased by blue monsters, some of whom he'd once called friends. Nothing's been quite the same since. Not even his own linear reality...
Setting Info: Part of the trouble with a game like Ao Oni is that it is an extremely intimate game. There's very little we ever find out about the outside world aside from the very brief glimpses obtained in a few of the versions (specifically, 1.0 and 5.0). In general, it is just Earth as we know it. However, it is a world where one cannot assume that rumors about monsters in mansions are just weird scare tactics. The white mansion is solid proof of that -- and rumor has it that onis may have popped up in other forms, in other times, in other places. Whether or not this is the case is impossible to verify. After all, one timeline isn't necessarily the same as another...
Canon Point: Post-game in all instances. For the most convenience, assume that 6.0 is the valid timeline once travel to his world becomes stabilized.
Abilities/Powers: He has no natural powers, although he's quite intelligent and astute with puzzles.
Intended Guild: Order of Scholarly Research
Notes/Other Info: Bear with me, this gets confusing.
Hiroshi is an odd case that developed as a result of overthinking about the meta-game of Ao Oni and its development cycle. The thing with Ao Oni is that there are usually pretty drastic changes between iterations. While there are some consistencies, other things may change, like house shape, Oni AI and appearances, orders of death (if death occurs at all) and even, in the most drastic instance between 1.0 and later versions, who's in the starting party. (It is worth noting this drastic change is actually important to my headcanon backstory as to how Hiroshi gets to be the way he is, but that won't be explored until later.)
Basically, if one played one version of Ao Oni, and then goes and plays another version, one gains an expectation of how things SHOULD go, which can get shattered when things don't go exactly as expected. Hiroshi, in nearly every iteration, is essentially a blank slate aside from his comments about scientific feasibility at the very beginning of the game, and is otherwise just an entity people can project their own personality on -- about as close to a silent protagonist as one can get without actually being silent. He in-game functions under the idea that the player IS essentially Hiroshi, which means the feelings of deja vu the player experiences is also what Hiroshi experiences. Ergo, he technically experiences every version in some form or another, and only later fits the pieces together to remember each continuity as as whole.
In an explanation more fitting to the diegesis of the game, it's like this: Many, many timelines exist where Hiroshi and his friends go into the mansion. Hiroshi survives in every single one of them. Shortly after each experience, he begins remembering every OTHER iteration of the game as well, and potentially instances that don't actually exist as a physical game. In short, he's cursed with having experienced not just his own experience in the mansion, but the experiences of every OTHER version of him, as if they are a sole entity across timelines. This is also why, until he gets smacked with solid evidence otherwise -- which, sadly for Hiroshi, usually happens within the first couple of weeks of any RP he's in -- he tries to rationalize it as a sign of personally developing madness rather than entertain the notion that there are monsters that only he ever seems to be able to escape from over, and over, and over, and over again. In other words, Hiroshi has awareness of the events, but only as he experiences them from his side of the fourth wall. There's no "someone is controlling me" narrative in his story.
In reality, Hiroshi was not originally the one to experience this...
Sample Post: http://planar-crossroads.dreamwidth.org/567.html?thread=214839#cmt214839