Ruby City: Application

[denialism]

PLAYER
Name: Fox
Age: over 18
Personal Journal: foxysquidalso
E-mail: available by request
AIM/MSN/etc: aim: steals your covers

CHARACTER
Name: Tohru Adachi
Canon: Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
Age: 27
Timeline: After being taken to the TV world again by Sho; shortly after encountering the Investigation Team there
If playing another character from the same canon, how will you deal with this?: N/A

Personality: Adachi thinks the world is full of shit, but the truth is, he's the one who's full of it.

Adachi is not a nice person, particularly at the beginning of canon. He is immature, deluded, cruel, bitter, and vindictive. One can easily see that by examining his actions. In the story of Persona 4, he is a villain. Not the ultimate villain, but a character whose actions drive much of the plot, which revolves around a group of teenagers—the Investigation Team—attempting to solve a string of murders and disappearances. Adachi is fully responsible for those crimes, if not some of the other dangers the protagonists face. He murders two people, and is also responsible (if indirectly) for the abduction of others, which would have led to their deaths if they hadn't received assistance from the protagonists.

Adachi likes violence and excitement. He hates being bored. He finds small town life incredibly dull. When he finds out that he can send people into the TV and that this kills them, he loves it, thinking that finally, there's something fun to do in the boring little town he feels trapped in. He pushes his first victim into the TV without knowing exactly what will happen, but he shoves his second victim in with a good idea of what's going to happen to her. Both of these victims are women who reject his sexual advances, and that is why he kills them. He thinks it's hilarious when they die, that he's finally having some fun. He then takes pleasure in working on the investigation, getting to feel superior to the investigators. To him, other people are generally "idiots" or "dumbasses". He thinks they're incompetent and doesn't value others much.

Adachi has deep-seated issues when it comes to women. He is a misogynist, considering that the two women he killed deserved it, because they were "golddiggers" who were motivated by financial gain. For one thing, this is not a reason to kill anyone, and for another, it is not true in any respect. Neither woman is motivated by money. Adachi is delusional, so delusional that he tells himself the women must have been interested in wealth, since they weren't interested in him. He doesn't have any money, and that's why they don't want him, he rationalizes. It makes sense to him. They didn't want him, and he doesn't regret having caused their deaths. Adachi's view of reality generally twists to fit his own ideas of how things are and should be.

He is a manipulative person who likes to toy with people, to get a reaction out of them. He continues committing crimes to amuse himself, manipulating another man with the same power into throwing people into the TV to "protect" them. More people would have died as a result of this, but it's at this point that the protagonists begin to thwart Adachi's plans.

Adachi has a warped, negative view of humanity. He thinks people are lazy and just want to live an easy life. He believes they would be content if they became shadows: unreasoning monsters that don't have to worry about anything. This worldview isn't an accurate assessment of humanity, of course. It's Adachi assuming that everyone else is like him. He's the one who doesn't want to work, who feels trapped, who is disappointed by how his life turned out. He wants to remake the world in his own image.

Full of complaints, Adachi is frustrated and miserable, telling the protagonists that they don't know what kind of shit he's been through. This frustration and misery are what has made him so petty, selfish and vindictive. He'd rather be a shadow himself, to not have to care about anything. His signature phrase is "the world is full of shit", and that's what he believes. He thinks that most people are trapped in miserable, boring lives and that only those with talent can escape the crushing grind of mediocrity. He's a pessimist, a misanthrope, and his life feels empty to him. None of his hopes and dreams came to pass.

He's embittered by disappointment, and he doesn't value his life highly, since he finds life meaningless. He's something of a defeatist. As soon as he's beaten by the protagonists, his first act is to attempt to kill himself, although he's stopped from doing so. Later, he resigns himself to being left to die in the TV world, although the protagonists bring him back. In Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, when he's beaten up by a cop who's interrogating him, he laughs and is amused by the fact that the cop is so pissed off, taunting him even as he's being punched. When he almost dies at Sho's hands later in P4AU, he behaves much the same, though there is a suggestion that he's starting to value his life and the world more, as his telling Sho to kill him is goading with a point, that point being that he's trying to stop him from destroying humanity.

It's important to mention that the cruel, mocking, miserable side of Adachi isn't the one that's usually on the surface. He usually puts on a persona (so to speak) that's cheerful and harmless. He plays the fool, appearing cheerful, friendly, and laid back. He makes silly jokes and puns. He performs magic tricks for Nanako. He loves guns, to the point that he takes a toy gun home with him, because he's not allowed to have the real one with him when he's off duty, and he religiously practices cleaning his weapon. He adores sushi and often woefully wishes he had some instead of other, boring, cheaper food. When he's putting on this façade, he seems like a bumbling, but well-meaning detective. It's only when his "true" self starts to shine through that he displays the sarcastic, cynical, vindictive side underneath.

Under the cover of incompetence, Adachi says things he doesn't mean, or opines on things he doesn't care about, to get a reaction or to be annoying, like when he tells Chie that Yukiko is a suspect in the murders, which angers her. Adachi knows Yukiko isn't the murderer, and he isn't supposed to be telling teenagers about the murder investigation, but it amuses him. He likes to play games with people, and many of his actions as events progress are specifically intended to keep his "game" with the protagonists going and keep him entertained. He is very much motivated by what he finds fun. His games often make people angry or frustrated with him, but that's what he wants. He loves it when people get angry or upset because of him.

However, Adachi isn't a mastermind who is pretending to be incompetent. His bumbling appearance is something of a put-on, yes, and he's not a stupid man, but he really does make mistakes, and although he manages to toy with the protagonists, he is not an expert planner, and he is tripped up by stupid errors that allow him to be found out. When ultimately confronted and challenged, he doesn't have a cunning ploy up his sleeve to deal with the tide of battle turning against him. He erupts into a juvenile tantrum, like a child whose toy has been taken away. He is immature. It's suggested that because he never formed bonds, he never really learned to grow and change. He never grew up.

In spite of everything Adachi has done, and in spite of the fact he is a person who acted reprehensibly, with a negative view and a number of problems, he's not portrayed as an inhuman monster, and he's not wholly evil. He isn't meant to be seen as evil. What he represents in the game is emptiness. From his perspective, he has nothing. He believes in nothing and could be described as a nihilist. In a game that emphasizes the forming and nurturing of bonds, Adachi has none, or believes he has none. This is illustrated by the fact that Adachi's Persona is a dark and twisted version of the protagonist's initial Persona, Izanagi. The protagonist gained strength by forming new bonds, and Adachi is like a vision of what can happen to a person without connections: lonely and isolated and bitter and angry.

For Adachi wants connections, no matter how much he might deny it. All his life, he saw people with friends, playing games, talking, laughing, but felt unable to join in. He envied them and told himself that friendship was just a lie that others believed in, but that he saw through it. Yet he still had that desire for connection, even though he suppressed it. He's so childish about it that he grows bitter and envious when he perceives that the cup he was given to drink out of at the Dojima household was given to the protagonist to use (but it turned out he had his own cup and his own bond with the family all along). After his defeat, he asks if things would have gone differently if he'd been more like the protagonist.

Forming bonds with others may be very difficult for him, but it is not impossible. In Persona 4 Golden, it is possible for the protagonist to form a social link with him, meaning that he does form a genuine connection with Adachi, and if Adachi's social link is taken to its final stage, that means that the protagonist has formed an unbreakable bond with him. It is also made clear in Adachi's letter from prison (if his social link is at its highest rank and the true ending is obtained) that he formed some kind of attachment to the protagonist, Dojima, and Nanako. Adachi writes that he's started to feel differently about the time he spent with them. In the epilogue of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Dojima even visits Adachi in prison, and they genuinely enjoy catching up with each other. Adachi complains that Dojima is a pain in the ass, but he smiles sincerely and expresses relief that he and Dojima are still friends. He does manage to change, even if he keeps up with his sarcasm and complaining.

Adachi also helps the protagonist. In Persona 4, he sends him a letter from prison that leads him toward the game's true antagonist. In Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Adachi appears again, but he's a reluctant antagonist, as he didn't want to enter the TV world, and it isn't his choice to confront the Investigation Team. However, once he's thrown into the action, he provides the team with clues even as he's goading and insulting them; it's just that he can't aid them openly without risking being hurt or killed. He ultimately joins with the protagonist, and they fight the villain together.

Adachi doesn't try for anything so grand as redemption, because he doesn't seem to believe he can be redeemed, believing that he's too far gone for that. Yet he does think he's changed, referring more than once in P4AU to how he "used to think" last year. His behavior is reformed, as he's sworn to follow "the rules of this world" as atonement for his sins and because he lost his game. He does his best to be a model prisoner, even while groaning about what a pain in the ass it all is.

Background: Here is his wiki page. As there is some variation in the storyline possible, I am playing Adachi assuming that his past involved the True Ending in Persona 4 Golden, and as if the protagonist reached rank 9 in his social link with him, meaning that Adachi did form a meaningful bond with the protagonist.

Abilities: There is some uncertainty over whether Persona characters can summon their personas in the real world, but I do believe it would be possible for Adachi to do so in Ruby City. Persona characters can use their personas in the real world in the series, although they may not always realize this. Adachi will believe that he can summon his, just like he does in the TV world which he will be coming from. He has no reason to think Ruby City differs in that respect. His persona is Magatsu-Izanagi, and its abilities are described on the wiki page.

First Person: Test drive thread

Third Person: Frowning down at his food, he arranged it carefully with his chopsticks. He wasn't very interested in eating it, even though he was hungry enough for his stomach to growl at him entreatingly. It was just so boring, the same food as he'd been given to eat the day before and the day before that. Sometimes a different vegetable or even something friend snuck in to liven up his meal, but the prison cooks were really in a rut! Seriously, didn't even they get boring, making the same dishes day after day? It was almost enough to make him lose all desire to live, and he wasn't the one doing the cooking.

The miso soup had hardly any taste. The mackerel was bland. Only the daikon added a bright note of sweetness, but he didn't care for pickled daikon. He would have given anything for some sushi, but they didn't provide sushi for prisoners. Imagine the outcry, if the government was wasting money on fatty tuna for murderers, rapists, and drug dealers!

He'd heard that there was a prison cafeteria where they sold prison meals to regular citizens, who wanted all the taste of prison cuisine without any of the fun of committing crimes. People were such idiots. You could get better food for yourself anywhere. Why shell out money for food prisoners were forced to choke down? For 800 or 900 yen, Adachi would give them his own food. He wouldn't miss it. Maybe he could start a fund for when he got out of prison, on the off chance that that happened someday.

But no, a prisoner couldn't make a living. Even his food didn't belong to him.

If someone really wanted to know what it was like to be in prison, they should try committing a crime. That was the whole point. If crime wasn't fun, if it wasn't worthwhile, if it didn't pay, why would people do it? For all that people liked to fool themselves otherwise, the majority of criminals didn't end up in prisons. And the worst criminals of all were usually the ones running the prisons.

What a joke. He would have laughed, if only this miso soup wasn't more tepid and tasteless than tap water.

"Stop playing with your damn food," called a voice from the hall. Adachi didn't turn toward it. No matter what he did, the guards were going to yell at him. There was nothing they hated more than a crooked cop in prison. It probably reminded them of how crooked they were. They couldn't like that much. Most cops were on the bad end of the spectrum. There were some exceptions, but not very many.

Adachi realized that, without thinking much about it, he had been moving around various pieces of food, placing them here and there on his tray. He looked at the layout seriously and shifted a few more things around. "Heh, look, there's my apartment. And there's Junes. And there's Dojima-san's and the Amagi Inn...." He tilted his head to the side, looking at the very rudimentary map he'd made with bits of prison food. No one else would have been able to tell what it was supposed to be. It was a map of places that meant something to him.

"Heh, though they don't mean anything at all," he said. He wouldn't see them again. He was as completely removed from them as it was possible to be. None of those places was his home any longer. He jabbed his chopsticks at "his apartment", a suitably unappetizing slab of daikon. "It always tasted a little gross," he murmured to himself, referring to both the air in the apartment and the daikon.

"Shut up, you," barked the guard in the hall.

"Do you want me to shut up, or is it creepy when I'm too quiet?" Adachi replied. He heard both from them, depending on the situation. Any excuse to take it out on him! "Make up your minds..."

"Just shut up!" This was one of the dumber guards. No fun at all.

Adachi rolled his eyes and started to eat. He ate the Amagi Inn and Yasogami High School. Junes. He hesitated when he got to Dojima's house, a square of mackerel. He poked at it with the end of his chopstick. Dojima was such a pain, always telling him what to do. Always telling him to do better, never satisfied with anything he did. Nobody else treated him that way, with the exception of his annoying old neighbor, most of them content to ignore him... Even his neighbor hadn't really known a damn thing about him. He'd been a stand-in for her son, a temporary replacement, not someone that mattered to her.

And Dojima-san...

Adachi snapped up the mackerel with his chopsticks quickly, before he could think twice about it, and swallowed it down. It tasted bland like everything else, though with that slightly fishy pungent taste that told him the fish had just slightly begun to go off.

There. It was finished. Done. The map had been wiped out. Like all those places. Not in reality, like he'd tried to make happen, but in their relation to him. He guessed he was the one who'd been wiped out. No sense getting sad about it, though. It happened to everyone, didn't it? Sooner or later.

Still, the fish left a bad taste in his mouth. The last thing he wanted was for it to come back up later. He sipped at his tea, then sucked on an orange slice.

"What the hell are you doing in there?" demanded the guard.

He really had the guy on edge! He must have been quiet for too long. For all that they tried to be so tough, these guards were jumpy. Some of them, Adachi knew, thought that he was crazy, because of the story about going into the TV. Maybe they thought he'd snap and go berserk. He wasn't intending to do any such thing. He was being good, obeying every rule. "Nothing, officer, nothing..."

He glanced back at the tray. It was gone now. Everything he wanted to eat, anyway. That was it. "Game over," he said.