Sorting Hat App
Player Information
Name: Kari
Timezone: US Pacific (UTC -8)
Personal Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kawree
Players Contact/AIM/MSN/YAHOO: kawreee @AIM
Email Address: bond.of.flames@gmail.com
Former/Other Characters in the RP: Hades (dance_kiss_schmooze)
Character Information
Name: Junpei Iori
Canon Origin/Series: Persona 3 (mostly FES, but I'm somewhat familiar with Portable as well)
School Year: 5th
Gender: Male
Age: 16 (canon birthday 16January)
Blood status: Halfblood: witch mother, muggle father
Personality: Junpei is a pretty classic class clown. He's loud, he's goofy, he's a little obnoxious and a lot incorrigible, but for the most part he means well. His ridiculous antics and over-the-top reactions are mostly a defense mechanism. He has very low self-esteem up until Chidori sacrifices herself for him, finding little about himself that's worth much of anything. His father was a deadbeat drunk, and nothing ever seemed to go right in his life, and thus Junpei turned to other means of being memorable. If he couldn't be cool or popular on merit, he would be noteworthy on sheer absurdity. This carries over for SH purposes--his muggle father has always thought he was kind of a freak, with his magical abilities, and thus verbally and physically abused him in his youth, turning to alcohol instead of attempting to understand his son.
Aside from the ability to summon a Persona (or being a wizard, in this case), Junpei is a pretty typical teenage boy. He thinks with the wrong head a lot of the time, has a dirty mind, makes suggestive comments, and entertains himself a ladies' man, though the ladies wouldn't necessarily agree. He has a tendency to eat foot when it comes to girls, often inadvertently insulting them (by expressing surprise when a girl is chosen to be in charge, for example), but even if his comments are frequently inappropriate, he genuinely cares for and respects his female comrades, and would fiercely and eagerly defend their safety and honor if it came to it. He adamantly insists that he doesn't look down on women, even after being surprised at what they can do or seeing them chosen to be in positions of power. It never seems to be a chauvinistic reaction--he just seems just genuinely surprised that the girls he knows are such badasses. He hates to see a girl cry and will fumble to find a handkerchief or the right thing to say, though the latter rarely comes to him.
Junpei may be energetic and eager to please, but he has a terrible tendency to just sort of give up when things looked too hard. As a child, he dreamed of being a professional baseball player, hoping to attain fame and the acceptance he sought by being an athlete and a hero. However, his resentment of his father and his poor home life discouraged him and exacerbated his innate inferiority complex, making him give up the dream before it ever had a chance to flourish. He always saw himself as a worthless screw-up who never had anything go right for him--all he knows how to do is run away, so why bother making goals when he was already doomed to have them go wrong?
While he didn't seem to be on poor terms with his classmates, he didn't really have any friends he could genuinely talk to until fairly recently, and for many years his greatest wish was to one day find real friends who would really listen to him. When he was inducted into S.E.E.S. he was elated to finally feel like he had something to offer, and quickly went about Trying Too Hard to be Awesome. It wasn't until Chidori's sacrifice that he really understood just what it meant to have power, and the power that having true friends gives you in return. This epiphany is something I'm really hoping to have the opportunity to parallel.
Despite a bit of a jealous streak, Minato is Junpei's closest friend. Once he gets over being pettily envious of Minato's Wild Card ability, he looks to Minato for leadership and inspiration, and vows to do everything he can to help rid the world of the Dark Hour and the Shadows. Though he starts the game off very childishly, Junpei comes into his own quite nicely as the story progresses, and arguably does the most growing up of the whole cast. While he was always a good guy in general, he was unreliable, feckless, and too focused on being a hero instead of being a team player during early missions. After coming to terms with Chidori's death and understanding that this second chance is not to be wasted, he becomes much more of a team player and really starts pulling his own weight, rather than riding on Minato's coattails and keeping an eye out for a good opportunity to try and show him up.
He's not above eating crow for his actions, either. After some failed attempts at showboating and endangering himself and his team, Junpei spends some time just being grumpy and short with Minato and Yukari, snapping at them and throwing a quiet tantrum all the while, because he's sick of Minato always getting to be the hero. But he realizes that it's really lame to be angry at your friends--especially your only real friends--and pulls Minato aside in class one day to apologize for his actions. In the Portable version, if you choose to play the female protagonist and max out your social link with Junpei, he gives you a keychain with his old housekeys on it, confiding that after all this time, he plans to go home and try and talk to his father, and his friends are the ones who gave him the strength to be able to do that. Junpei's arcana in the Portable version is the Magician, symbolizing initiative, self-confidence, and a will and capability to master oneself and one's powers. A most appropriate arcana indeed.
Perhaps surprisingly, Junpei seems to have little issue admitting to certain weaknesses. He openly admits to having been found "cryin' like a baby" the first night he encountered Shadows, and seems fully aware of the fact that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed and really doesn't seem terribly ashamed about it.
Above all, Junpei is a bro through and through. He's the kind of guy you sort of can't help but like, really--he's funny and energetic, fun-loving and easy to talk to, even if he makes you inexplicably want to smack him upside the head a lot of the time. He likes to embellish stories and tell tall tales, often while holding a flashlight beneath his chin for Maximum Dork Effect, and even claims to be an Ace Detective sometimes. He doesn't always seem to be entirely with it, but though he has a tendency to say the wrong thing or get into trouble, he rarely does so maliciously. He's a genuinely kind person who just doesn't always have a good strong connection between his brain and his mouth. He's happy to make a joke at his own expense to make a friend smile, and though his edges remain a little rough, he takes his friendships very seriously, and cherishes them more than anything else(except maybe his hat). At the end of the day, he goes from a selfish and self-pitying child into a rock-solid and reliable young man, and he'll do whatever it takes to keep his friends safe, even if it means stepping back and letting someone else take the glory.
Canon Background: Here is a wiki link, but it's not very inclusive and really has no history, so since I'm a wretched overachiever, I'm going to write it all out for you, too. :D
Junpei was born January 16th, 1993, to an alcoholic father and a mother we never learn anything about. Junpei resents his father's addiction, and makes a point to leave the house whenever the old man has been drinking, which leads to him spending many a late night with nowhere to go but the courtyard of the Pawlonia Mall. It seems this is a relatively common occurrence--Junpei is angry and hurt by his father's actions, but can't seem to figure out any better solution than running away, and thus the vicious cycle of his life seems to spiral on and on. But on an evening in April of 2009, Junpei finds his life will change forever.
Not long after the new student Minato Arisato tranfsers into his class, Junpei is seen traipsing the mall looking downtrodden shortly before midnight on that fateful night. His father has managed to get drunk on cooking wine, and Junpei is once again left with no better choice than to flee. Though he doesn't realize it until much later, that was the first night he met Koromaru, the S.E.E.S. group's beloved pet and fellow Persona-user in the days to come. Junpei chats fondly with the dog, asking if he wants to join his "Nowhere to Go After School" club. He runs into some old classmates, who invite him to go drinking at the nearby club, and he becomes very agitated, snapping at them that he's not interested in drinking. They leave, and he sort of deflates, lamenting to Koromaru that everything in his life just sucks, and he wishes that he could do something really awesome to change the world--something that would make him different and special.
He's about to get his wish. On the stoke of midnight, Junpei finds himself lost within the Dark Hour, an extra hour that occurs every day, where water turns blood-red, the moon turns a sickly green, electronics shut down, and normal humans are locked in coffins and never even realize that the days of their lives truly last twenty-five hours. Anyone lured out of their coffin transmogrification becomes food for the Shadows, dark creatures that prey on human minds during the Dark Hour. If a human's mind is consumed by Shadows, that person becomes one of The Lost, basically a drooling zombie that loses all ability to function as a normal human being. Anyone freed of their coffin who doesn't get devoured simply loses all memory of every being awake during this extra hour, and goes about their life as if nothing had happened. Only those individuals who are capable of summoning Personas--essentially physical manifestations of someone's soul and personality or a vessel for them to use to fight that which they fear or detest--are able to remain awake and aware during this extra hour of the night.
Junpei had no idea just what he was asking for when he pleaded for a special power that could change the world. When the Dark Hour hits, Junpei has no idea what to make of the whole situation, and simply does what he's best at--he runs away. He is found bawling his eyes out in the all-night pharmacy by an upperclassman, Akihiko Sanada, and is recruited to help the S.E.E.S. group fight the Shadows. Initially, Junpei is just elated to have an excuse to move away from home and into the dorms in Iwatodai, and spends most of his time boasting to his new comrades, who seem ambivalent at best, and annoyed as all get-out at worst, by his presence.
When he learns that Minato has the ability to summon multiple Personas instead of just one, he becomes fiercely jealous, and starts bucking Minato's authority as leader, ignoring orders and endangering himself and the team as a result. As the group continues to fight Shadows, they discover what they believe is a solution to the Dark Hour and the mysterious tower of Tartarus, and Junpei is actually really upset by this revelation. He knows that getting rid of the Shadows and the Dark Hour is what they've been working toward, but using his Persona to fight makes him feel like a hero, like he's doing something worthwhile, and if he loses that, then he just goes back to being Junpei Iori the Loser. Especially in comparison to Minato's magical protagonist abilities, Junpei feels like nothing he does is good enough, and finds himself resenting Minato, even though he considers him a good friend. He finally apologizes for acting like a dick, but remains torn on the subject of losing the one thing he feels makes him worth anything at all.
Shortly before summer arrives, the group plans a trip to Yakushima for some R&R, and a significant amount of excrement hits any given rotary device. It is revealed that the powerful Kirijo Group is actually responsible for both the Dark Hour and Tartarus due to an accident during experimentation with Shadows. This renews the group's resolve to destroy all twelve of the full-moon Shadows and undo the damage that the Kirijo Group has done, though the revelation of both their fathers' involvement in the project hits both Mitsuru Kirijo and Yukari Takeba very hard.
While in Yakushima, the group discovers Aigis, an android who was created as part of the experimentation on Shadows. With the advent of Minato nearby, she reactivated after being in stasis for ten years, insisting on being near him. The group is quick to 'adopt' her as one of their own when she joins S.E.E.S., and Junpei is no exception, taking to calling her Ai-chan. Though she is a robot, Junpei seems to genuinely regard her as a friend and comrade.
In late August, Junpei meets a girl named Chidori Yoshino. At first, he finds her perplexing, unable to understand her strange clothes or her love of art. But there's something intriguing about her, and he continues to return to the place where he first met her, chatting with her each time, much to her chagrin. During one meeting, he notices she has cut her hand and is bleeding, and is quick to address the wound. She calls him weird, but deigns to tell him her name, and says they will meet again. Their talks become more frequent and less awkward, and Junpei proudly tells Chidori about his work in S.E.E.S., claiming to be the leader of the operation and boasting about his power.
What Junpei doesn't realize is that Chidori is actually working for Strega, a rival group of Persona users whose Personas were not naturally created or awakened. Strega consists of two other members besides Chidori--the leader Takaya, and Jin. The trio has been using the Dark Hour for their own selfish advances, and will do anything to stop it from being destroyed. Believing Junpei is the leader of S.E.E.S., Chidori demands that he order his colleagues to stop trying to destroy the Dark Hour, and when he explains that he only told her he was in charge to impress her, she doesn't understand. Suddenly conflicted and then thrown into mental shock when she is unable to summon her Persona to help her, Chidori has a breakdown, and the S.E.E.S. members have her hospitalized.
Despite her betrayal and the idea that she was only talking to him because she believed he was the leader of the rival group, Junpei goes to see Chidori in the hospital often. He has fallen completely in love with her, and can't bear the thought of losing her. Though she refuses to speak to anyone for a long time, Junpei's persistence pays off, and she finally slowly begins to open up to him. However, it becomes obvious that being a part of Strega has really screwed her up. She isn't afraid of pain, she isn't afraid of death. When Junpei discovers that the wound on her hand that day was self-inflicted, he becomes very upset, shouting at her that it's wrong to hurt herself that way. She replies simply that he could never understand.
During one visit, Chidori loses control of her Persona, Medea, and it tries to strangle her. They are able to subdue it, but that is when it comes to light that Strega's Personas were not awakened naturally, and that the members have to take suppressants to keep their Personas in check. When Chidori awakens after the attack, Junpei is relieved, and she doesn't understand why he looks so afraid. "Dying just means you don't wake up anymore..." she tells him, and he tells her that just because she's not afraid to die doesn't mean anyone else would be okay with her dying.
He continues to visit her in the hospital whenever he can, and is amazed to discover that her Persona's power is life--she revives a vase of dead flowers miraculously, and he's very impressed. He shares stories of his childhood, and she replies that all she remembers about her childhood is being in hospitals all the time, but maybe she hates them less now, because he is always there to be with her. Junpei's tenacity seems to not only be breathing life into Chidori that she never had before, but at the same time, he finds that maybe he has more to live for than simply trying to be a Big Damn Hero all the time.
Unfortunately, the good mood doesn't last long. When it comes time to fight the 10th Shadow, two team members have gone missing--the group's youngest member, Ken Amada, and Akihiko's childhood friend Shinjirou Aragaki. The rest of the group defeats the Shadows, but Ken and Shinjirou remain unaccounted for. By the time they find them, however, it's too late. It is the anniversary of Ken's mother's death, and he blames Shinji for the incident, intending to kill him out of revenge. But when faced with actually taking his life, Ken falters, and Takaya seizes the moment, demanding information on S.E.E.S. members. When Ken claims he has a certain power to protect one of the other members, Takaya means to shoot him, but Shinjirou takes the bullet instead, and the group suffers its first casualty.
A month passes, and life goes on, even if everyone is still hurting from Shinjirou's death. The night of the last Shadow's destruction is upon the group, and they're not at all surprised to find that Strega is afoot as well. S.E.E.S. confronts Strega, defeating them soundly. Rather than watch the Dark Hour be destroyed, and their power as Persona users along with it, Jin and Takaya throw themselves off a bridge, seemingly to their deaths. After defeating the 12th and final Shadow, the group decides to throw a party to celebrate the end of the Dark Hour.
During the party, Mitsuru's father shows up to congratulate them on their victory, but the group has noticed that Shuji Ikutsuki--the chairman of the S.E.E.S. group--and Aigis are nowhere to be found. How suspect. They continue the festivities until midnight... when the Dark Hour arrives. Everyone is startled--shouldn't the Dark Hour be gone forever?
Unfortunately, the group has been horribly misled by Ikutsuki. By destroying the 12 Shadows that appear during the full moon, the group has actually successfully reunited the pieces of Nyx, the mother of all Shadows, who will bring about The Fall, destroying all human life and returning peace to the planet, undoing all of the ruin of humanity. He binds all of the S.E.E.S. members and orders Aigis to kill them. Mitsuru's father tries to stop him, but is killed for his efforts. Unable to shoot her comrades, Aigis frees them instead, driving Ikutsuki into a rage. Rather than surrender, Ikutsuki ends his life by leaping from the edge of Tartarus. Mitsuru is crushed by grief over her father's death, and the group is suddenly left wondering what they're fighting for.
Junpei takes it upon himself to tell Chidori that her friends from Strega have died. She recoils from his presence, but not because of the news. She finds that suddenly being around him hurts, and she doesn't want to feel that way anymore. She tells him not to come see her anymore, and Junpei is hurt and confused by her words.
Not long after, a new student transfers into Junpei and Minato's class--Ryoji Mochizuki. The gang makes hesitant friends with him, though they are all still quite shaken over everything that has happened. Junpei has been depressed ever since Chidori told him to stop visiting her, and avoids the group during social times, but seems to get his energy back when the class takes a trip to Kyoto. For the most part, the trip is uneventful for Junpei, until the last night, when he and the other boys decide it'll be good times to spy on the girls in the hot springs. After a fierce "execution" from Mitsuru, the gang heads back to Iwatodai and the daily grind.
Shortly after, Chidori is visited in her hospital room by Takaya and Jin, who are apparently not so dead after all. They tell her to come back to Strega, and she agrees to go willingly, insisting that Junpei is the reason she faltered from the beginning. Leaving her beloved sketchbook on the bed, she goes back with Takaya and Jin. The following night, the group is harassed by Strega, including Chidori, and Junpei is overcome with confusion and anger. Confronting her, he demands to know what she's doing, but she simply attacks him with her weapon, leaving him stranded on the offensive.
S.E.E.S. attacks Chidori, injuring her, and Junpei rushes to her side as she falls, trying again to draw an explanation from her. Chidori explains that she never feared death--what she feared was attachment, and meeting Junpei scared her more than anything ever had, because she feared the day she would no longer be able to be with him. When Takaya shows up and plans to destroy Chidori for turning her back on Strega, Junpei rises to the occasion and cries that he will protect Chidori with his very life.
Takaya shoots Junpei cleanly through the heart, and he drops like a stone.
Chidori proceeds to use all of her power, channeling the life-emitting abilities of her Persona into Junpei to save his life. Unfortunately, this claims her life, and Junpei lives, but only because Chidori loved him enough to die to save him. Furious, Junpei's Persona evolves, and he attacks Jin and Takaya mercilessly before they manage to escape, and then he falls to his knees with grief. It's hard, he says, but "it's not just my life anymore."
Junpei spends the next few days grieving, until her sketchbook arrives, delivered from the hospital. In the book is a very detailed portrait of Junpei, and he crumples to the floor, sobbing. After a moment, he collects himself, and gets back to his feet, apologizing for being the way he's been for so long. Though he has lost the one person he loved more than anything, Junpei resolves to live for both of them now, doing whatever he can to get rid of the Dark Hour and prevent The Fall, to make the world a safer place not so he can feel like a hero, but because it's the right thing to do. Junpei has finally realized that running away isn't the answer, and the only way to stop being a loser and become the person Chidori made him want to be is to face life head-on.
The group goes on to defeat Nyx, but the method varies depending on the player's choices. If you need me to summarize the rest of the story I will be more than happy to do so, but that's most of Junpei's story and the significant events that impact his life. I'm planning to 'pull' him, as it were, from a point prior to Chidori's death anyway, so most of what occurs beyond that event wouldn't have an effective parallel for Sorting Hat.
Background (AU!Canon; HP): Junpei was born January 16th, 1996, to a muggle father and a mother who was an accomplished witch, but never really had a presence in her son's life. Junpei's father Satoshi was once a prestigious volunteer firefighter in [Iwatodai??], and when he pulled a lovely dark-haired woman from a burning building it was love at first sight. One whirlwind romance later, it seemed a shotgun wedding was in order. When a healthy baby boy was born, it seemed like the perfect family, but beneath the happy surface was a faultline that was about to break apart.
Yuzuha had never told Satoshi about her magical abilities, and when he'd gotten her pregnant it had only made her more reluctant to come forward with the information. Satoshi was a simple man who obviously had no inkling of the magical world his wife hailed from, but while she might have been able to hide her power from him forever and live a normal muggle life, having a child changed the playing field completely. Because magical genes were dominant, there was a significant possibility the child would turn out to be magical, and Yuzuha wasn't willing to sacrifice her son's magical education over her fear of her husband's reaction.
When he discovered that his wife was a witch and his son was likely a wizard, Satoshi didn't know how to handle the news. He became angry and started drinking. Whenever Yuzuha brought up the subject of what they were going to do about Junpei's magical education, Satoshi would fly into a rage, behaving violently. He lost his license to be a firefighter due to his drinking, and wound up hopping from one worthless part-time job to another. The family was forced to move from a house into a cramped apartment.
Raised by a wizard and a muggle herself, Yuzuha was familiar enough with the muggle world to get a normal job, but the verbal and physical abuse in the home continued until she couldn't take it anymore. Yuzuha had never been physically strong, but it seemed that her heart was as fragile as the rest of her body: when Junpei was six years old, his mother collapsed after a particularly heated argument. She never got back up.
Suddenly Junpei's whole world was about to be turned on its side. Without his mother to act as a buffer, Junpei had to bear the brunt of his father's temper. Try as he might to earn his father's respect and love, Junpei always found he came up short. He was too young to really understand what his mother had told him about his potential--he didn't really know what it meant to be a wizard--and of course his father had no interest or intention to help him discover his abilities.
And so Junpei immersed himself in the muggle world instead of trying to comprehend the more fantastic aspects of his life. He thought that if he dreamed big, maybe his father would accept and appreciate him. He loved baseball and idolized Ichirou, believing that maybe one day he could become a famous baseball player and live overseas just like he did. Satoshi of course shot this down: what could a freak like Junpei accomplish, after all? Steeped in the idea that he would never be able to achieve his goals because of his 'freakish' lineage, Junpei developed a raging inferiority complex from a very young age, and a sort of Stockholm Syndrome with his abusive father. No matter how much Satoshi drank, no matter how much he talked down to his son, Junpei yearned for his father's acceptance and love.
It never came. Luckily, someone else came into Junpei's life around that time. When a pair of twins his age moved into an adjacent apartment, Junpei latched onto the Arisato children like a barnacle and became very close with them. He had never really had friends before, and so suddenly having two people who seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with him was novel and almost intoxicating. In retrospect, he found himself wondering why they put up with his clinginess...
How would your character fit in to each House?
Gryffindor:Their daring, nerve and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart.
While Junpei's daring and nerve are often ill-placed and are sometimes a mere byproduct of bravado and a need to show off, his chivalry and dedication to his friends are pure enough. No matter how high the stakes or how dangerous the situation, Junpei will always stand by his friends. He would literally die for the people he cares about. If it's 'pointless heroics' you're looking for, Junpei is definitely your man.
Hufflepuff:Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,
And unafraid of toil.
Loyalty may be one of Junpei's strong points, but toil most assuredly is not. He's acceptably honest, certainly seems to adhere to a fair fight, and holds friendship above most things, but he's a below-average student in most subjects less out of ineptitude and more out of lack of interest and ambition. He tried working hard to get what he wanted and no one seemed to pay attention, so he prefers to just skirt along. Why put forth all that effort when doing Just Enough gets the same results?
Ravenclaw:Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind.
Junpei may think he's witty, but he's definitely not a scholar. What he lacks in academic aptitude he makes up for with cagey resourcefulness, certainly, but no one would ever accuse Junpei of being a smart cookie.
Slytherin:Those cunning folk use any means,
To achieve their ends.
Junpei is definitely resourceful, but he's more known for his dumb luck than his cunning. When he tried being ambitious his father shot down his dreams, and so mostly Junpei just flies by the seat of his pants; he's not much for making big plans and doing whatever it takes to achieve them these days. He does have a very honed sense of self-preservation, but it's more escapism than anything else. He'll throw himself headlong into the fray to help his friends, but when faced with his own demons he closes in on himself rather than staring them down. He's also a half-blood, which would probably bring him more harm than anything else in this house.
RP Samples: [Two samples of your choosing go here. They can be either a Journal entry and a Third Person sample, two Journal entries, or two Third Person samples. You can also link to a sample post, or a ten-comment thread in our Dressing Room
There is a Minimum of 200 words required for Third Person samples.]
Third Person Sample: [If you decide to use a Third Person sample, it goes here.]
Name: Kari
Timezone: US Pacific (UTC -8)
Personal Journal:
kawreePlayers Contact/AIM/MSN/YAHOO: kawreee @AIM
Email Address: bond.of.flames@gmail.com
Former/Other Characters in the RP: Hades (
dance_kiss_schmooze)Character Information
Name: Junpei Iori
Canon Origin/Series: Persona 3 (mostly FES, but I'm somewhat familiar with Portable as well)
School Year: 5th
Gender: Male
Age: 16 (canon birthday 16January)
Blood status: Halfblood: witch mother, muggle father
Personality: Junpei is a pretty classic class clown. He's loud, he's goofy, he's a little obnoxious and a lot incorrigible, but for the most part he means well. His ridiculous antics and over-the-top reactions are mostly a defense mechanism. He has very low self-esteem up until Chidori sacrifices herself for him, finding little about himself that's worth much of anything. His father was a deadbeat drunk, and nothing ever seemed to go right in his life, and thus Junpei turned to other means of being memorable. If he couldn't be cool or popular on merit, he would be noteworthy on sheer absurdity. This carries over for SH purposes--his muggle father has always thought he was kind of a freak, with his magical abilities, and thus verbally and physically abused him in his youth, turning to alcohol instead of attempting to understand his son.
Aside from the ability to summon a Persona (or being a wizard, in this case), Junpei is a pretty typical teenage boy. He thinks with the wrong head a lot of the time, has a dirty mind, makes suggestive comments, and entertains himself a ladies' man, though the ladies wouldn't necessarily agree. He has a tendency to eat foot when it comes to girls, often inadvertently insulting them (by expressing surprise when a girl is chosen to be in charge, for example), but even if his comments are frequently inappropriate, he genuinely cares for and respects his female comrades, and would fiercely and eagerly defend their safety and honor if it came to it. He adamantly insists that he doesn't look down on women, even after being surprised at what they can do or seeing them chosen to be in positions of power. It never seems to be a chauvinistic reaction--he just seems just genuinely surprised that the girls he knows are such badasses. He hates to see a girl cry and will fumble to find a handkerchief or the right thing to say, though the latter rarely comes to him.
Junpei may be energetic and eager to please, but he has a terrible tendency to just sort of give up when things looked too hard. As a child, he dreamed of being a professional baseball player, hoping to attain fame and the acceptance he sought by being an athlete and a hero. However, his resentment of his father and his poor home life discouraged him and exacerbated his innate inferiority complex, making him give up the dream before it ever had a chance to flourish. He always saw himself as a worthless screw-up who never had anything go right for him--all he knows how to do is run away, so why bother making goals when he was already doomed to have them go wrong?
While he didn't seem to be on poor terms with his classmates, he didn't really have any friends he could genuinely talk to until fairly recently, and for many years his greatest wish was to one day find real friends who would really listen to him. When he was inducted into S.E.E.S. he was elated to finally feel like he had something to offer, and quickly went about Trying Too Hard to be Awesome. It wasn't until Chidori's sacrifice that he really understood just what it meant to have power, and the power that having true friends gives you in return. This epiphany is something I'm really hoping to have the opportunity to parallel.
Despite a bit of a jealous streak, Minato is Junpei's closest friend. Once he gets over being pettily envious of Minato's Wild Card ability, he looks to Minato for leadership and inspiration, and vows to do everything he can to help rid the world of the Dark Hour and the Shadows. Though he starts the game off very childishly, Junpei comes into his own quite nicely as the story progresses, and arguably does the most growing up of the whole cast. While he was always a good guy in general, he was unreliable, feckless, and too focused on being a hero instead of being a team player during early missions. After coming to terms with Chidori's death and understanding that this second chance is not to be wasted, he becomes much more of a team player and really starts pulling his own weight, rather than riding on Minato's coattails and keeping an eye out for a good opportunity to try and show him up.
He's not above eating crow for his actions, either. After some failed attempts at showboating and endangering himself and his team, Junpei spends some time just being grumpy and short with Minato and Yukari, snapping at them and throwing a quiet tantrum all the while, because he's sick of Minato always getting to be the hero. But he realizes that it's really lame to be angry at your friends--especially your only real friends--and pulls Minato aside in class one day to apologize for his actions. In the Portable version, if you choose to play the female protagonist and max out your social link with Junpei, he gives you a keychain with his old housekeys on it, confiding that after all this time, he plans to go home and try and talk to his father, and his friends are the ones who gave him the strength to be able to do that. Junpei's arcana in the Portable version is the Magician, symbolizing initiative, self-confidence, and a will and capability to master oneself and one's powers. A most appropriate arcana indeed.
Perhaps surprisingly, Junpei seems to have little issue admitting to certain weaknesses. He openly admits to having been found "cryin' like a baby" the first night he encountered Shadows, and seems fully aware of the fact that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed and really doesn't seem terribly ashamed about it.
Above all, Junpei is a bro through and through. He's the kind of guy you sort of can't help but like, really--he's funny and energetic, fun-loving and easy to talk to, even if he makes you inexplicably want to smack him upside the head a lot of the time. He likes to embellish stories and tell tall tales, often while holding a flashlight beneath his chin for Maximum Dork Effect, and even claims to be an Ace Detective sometimes. He doesn't always seem to be entirely with it, but though he has a tendency to say the wrong thing or get into trouble, he rarely does so maliciously. He's a genuinely kind person who just doesn't always have a good strong connection between his brain and his mouth. He's happy to make a joke at his own expense to make a friend smile, and though his edges remain a little rough, he takes his friendships very seriously, and cherishes them more than anything else
Canon Background: Here is a wiki link, but it's not very inclusive and really has no history, so since I'm a wretched overachiever, I'm going to write it all out for you, too. :D
Junpei was born January 16th, 1993, to an alcoholic father and a mother we never learn anything about. Junpei resents his father's addiction, and makes a point to leave the house whenever the old man has been drinking, which leads to him spending many a late night with nowhere to go but the courtyard of the Pawlonia Mall. It seems this is a relatively common occurrence--Junpei is angry and hurt by his father's actions, but can't seem to figure out any better solution than running away, and thus the vicious cycle of his life seems to spiral on and on. But on an evening in April of 2009, Junpei finds his life will change forever.
Not long after the new student Minato Arisato tranfsers into his class, Junpei is seen traipsing the mall looking downtrodden shortly before midnight on that fateful night. His father has managed to get drunk on cooking wine, and Junpei is once again left with no better choice than to flee. Though he doesn't realize it until much later, that was the first night he met Koromaru, the S.E.E.S. group's beloved pet and fellow Persona-user in the days to come. Junpei chats fondly with the dog, asking if he wants to join his "Nowhere to Go After School" club. He runs into some old classmates, who invite him to go drinking at the nearby club, and he becomes very agitated, snapping at them that he's not interested in drinking. They leave, and he sort of deflates, lamenting to Koromaru that everything in his life just sucks, and he wishes that he could do something really awesome to change the world--something that would make him different and special.
He's about to get his wish. On the stoke of midnight, Junpei finds himself lost within the Dark Hour, an extra hour that occurs every day, where water turns blood-red, the moon turns a sickly green, electronics shut down, and normal humans are locked in coffins and never even realize that the days of their lives truly last twenty-five hours. Anyone lured out of their coffin transmogrification becomes food for the Shadows, dark creatures that prey on human minds during the Dark Hour. If a human's mind is consumed by Shadows, that person becomes one of The Lost, basically a drooling zombie that loses all ability to function as a normal human being. Anyone freed of their coffin who doesn't get devoured simply loses all memory of every being awake during this extra hour, and goes about their life as if nothing had happened. Only those individuals who are capable of summoning Personas--essentially physical manifestations of someone's soul and personality or a vessel for them to use to fight that which they fear or detest--are able to remain awake and aware during this extra hour of the night.
Junpei had no idea just what he was asking for when he pleaded for a special power that could change the world. When the Dark Hour hits, Junpei has no idea what to make of the whole situation, and simply does what he's best at--he runs away. He is found bawling his eyes out in the all-night pharmacy by an upperclassman, Akihiko Sanada, and is recruited to help the S.E.E.S. group fight the Shadows. Initially, Junpei is just elated to have an excuse to move away from home and into the dorms in Iwatodai, and spends most of his time boasting to his new comrades, who seem ambivalent at best, and annoyed as all get-out at worst, by his presence.
When he learns that Minato has the ability to summon multiple Personas instead of just one, he becomes fiercely jealous, and starts bucking Minato's authority as leader, ignoring orders and endangering himself and the team as a result. As the group continues to fight Shadows, they discover what they believe is a solution to the Dark Hour and the mysterious tower of Tartarus, and Junpei is actually really upset by this revelation. He knows that getting rid of the Shadows and the Dark Hour is what they've been working toward, but using his Persona to fight makes him feel like a hero, like he's doing something worthwhile, and if he loses that, then he just goes back to being Junpei Iori the Loser. Especially in comparison to Minato's magical protagonist abilities, Junpei feels like nothing he does is good enough, and finds himself resenting Minato, even though he considers him a good friend. He finally apologizes for acting like a dick, but remains torn on the subject of losing the one thing he feels makes him worth anything at all.
Shortly before summer arrives, the group plans a trip to Yakushima for some R&R, and a significant amount of excrement hits any given rotary device. It is revealed that the powerful Kirijo Group is actually responsible for both the Dark Hour and Tartarus due to an accident during experimentation with Shadows. This renews the group's resolve to destroy all twelve of the full-moon Shadows and undo the damage that the Kirijo Group has done, though the revelation of both their fathers' involvement in the project hits both Mitsuru Kirijo and Yukari Takeba very hard.
While in Yakushima, the group discovers Aigis, an android who was created as part of the experimentation on Shadows. With the advent of Minato nearby, she reactivated after being in stasis for ten years, insisting on being near him. The group is quick to 'adopt' her as one of their own when she joins S.E.E.S., and Junpei is no exception, taking to calling her Ai-chan. Though she is a robot, Junpei seems to genuinely regard her as a friend and comrade.
In late August, Junpei meets a girl named Chidori Yoshino. At first, he finds her perplexing, unable to understand her strange clothes or her love of art. But there's something intriguing about her, and he continues to return to the place where he first met her, chatting with her each time, much to her chagrin. During one meeting, he notices she has cut her hand and is bleeding, and is quick to address the wound. She calls him weird, but deigns to tell him her name, and says they will meet again. Their talks become more frequent and less awkward, and Junpei proudly tells Chidori about his work in S.E.E.S., claiming to be the leader of the operation and boasting about his power.
What Junpei doesn't realize is that Chidori is actually working for Strega, a rival group of Persona users whose Personas were not naturally created or awakened. Strega consists of two other members besides Chidori--the leader Takaya, and Jin. The trio has been using the Dark Hour for their own selfish advances, and will do anything to stop it from being destroyed. Believing Junpei is the leader of S.E.E.S., Chidori demands that he order his colleagues to stop trying to destroy the Dark Hour, and when he explains that he only told her he was in charge to impress her, she doesn't understand. Suddenly conflicted and then thrown into mental shock when she is unable to summon her Persona to help her, Chidori has a breakdown, and the S.E.E.S. members have her hospitalized.
Despite her betrayal and the idea that she was only talking to him because she believed he was the leader of the rival group, Junpei goes to see Chidori in the hospital often. He has fallen completely in love with her, and can't bear the thought of losing her. Though she refuses to speak to anyone for a long time, Junpei's persistence pays off, and she finally slowly begins to open up to him. However, it becomes obvious that being a part of Strega has really screwed her up. She isn't afraid of pain, she isn't afraid of death. When Junpei discovers that the wound on her hand that day was self-inflicted, he becomes very upset, shouting at her that it's wrong to hurt herself that way. She replies simply that he could never understand.
During one visit, Chidori loses control of her Persona, Medea, and it tries to strangle her. They are able to subdue it, but that is when it comes to light that Strega's Personas were not awakened naturally, and that the members have to take suppressants to keep their Personas in check. When Chidori awakens after the attack, Junpei is relieved, and she doesn't understand why he looks so afraid. "Dying just means you don't wake up anymore..." she tells him, and he tells her that just because she's not afraid to die doesn't mean anyone else would be okay with her dying.
He continues to visit her in the hospital whenever he can, and is amazed to discover that her Persona's power is life--she revives a vase of dead flowers miraculously, and he's very impressed. He shares stories of his childhood, and she replies that all she remembers about her childhood is being in hospitals all the time, but maybe she hates them less now, because he is always there to be with her. Junpei's tenacity seems to not only be breathing life into Chidori that she never had before, but at the same time, he finds that maybe he has more to live for than simply trying to be a Big Damn Hero all the time.
Unfortunately, the good mood doesn't last long. When it comes time to fight the 10th Shadow, two team members have gone missing--the group's youngest member, Ken Amada, and Akihiko's childhood friend Shinjirou Aragaki. The rest of the group defeats the Shadows, but Ken and Shinjirou remain unaccounted for. By the time they find them, however, it's too late. It is the anniversary of Ken's mother's death, and he blames Shinji for the incident, intending to kill him out of revenge. But when faced with actually taking his life, Ken falters, and Takaya seizes the moment, demanding information on S.E.E.S. members. When Ken claims he has a certain power to protect one of the other members, Takaya means to shoot him, but Shinjirou takes the bullet instead, and the group suffers its first casualty.
A month passes, and life goes on, even if everyone is still hurting from Shinjirou's death. The night of the last Shadow's destruction is upon the group, and they're not at all surprised to find that Strega is afoot as well. S.E.E.S. confronts Strega, defeating them soundly. Rather than watch the Dark Hour be destroyed, and their power as Persona users along with it, Jin and Takaya throw themselves off a bridge, seemingly to their deaths. After defeating the 12th and final Shadow, the group decides to throw a party to celebrate the end of the Dark Hour.
During the party, Mitsuru's father shows up to congratulate them on their victory, but the group has noticed that Shuji Ikutsuki--the chairman of the S.E.E.S. group--and Aigis are nowhere to be found. How suspect. They continue the festivities until midnight... when the Dark Hour arrives. Everyone is startled--shouldn't the Dark Hour be gone forever?
Unfortunately, the group has been horribly misled by Ikutsuki. By destroying the 12 Shadows that appear during the full moon, the group has actually successfully reunited the pieces of Nyx, the mother of all Shadows, who will bring about The Fall, destroying all human life and returning peace to the planet, undoing all of the ruin of humanity. He binds all of the S.E.E.S. members and orders Aigis to kill them. Mitsuru's father tries to stop him, but is killed for his efforts. Unable to shoot her comrades, Aigis frees them instead, driving Ikutsuki into a rage. Rather than surrender, Ikutsuki ends his life by leaping from the edge of Tartarus. Mitsuru is crushed by grief over her father's death, and the group is suddenly left wondering what they're fighting for.
Junpei takes it upon himself to tell Chidori that her friends from Strega have died. She recoils from his presence, but not because of the news. She finds that suddenly being around him hurts, and she doesn't want to feel that way anymore. She tells him not to come see her anymore, and Junpei is hurt and confused by her words.
Not long after, a new student transfers into Junpei and Minato's class--Ryoji Mochizuki. The gang makes hesitant friends with him, though they are all still quite shaken over everything that has happened. Junpei has been depressed ever since Chidori told him to stop visiting her, and avoids the group during social times, but seems to get his energy back when the class takes a trip to Kyoto. For the most part, the trip is uneventful for Junpei, until the last night, when he and the other boys decide it'll be good times to spy on the girls in the hot springs. After a fierce "execution" from Mitsuru, the gang heads back to Iwatodai and the daily grind.
Shortly after, Chidori is visited in her hospital room by Takaya and Jin, who are apparently not so dead after all. They tell her to come back to Strega, and she agrees to go willingly, insisting that Junpei is the reason she faltered from the beginning. Leaving her beloved sketchbook on the bed, she goes back with Takaya and Jin. The following night, the group is harassed by Strega, including Chidori, and Junpei is overcome with confusion and anger. Confronting her, he demands to know what she's doing, but she simply attacks him with her weapon, leaving him stranded on the offensive.
S.E.E.S. attacks Chidori, injuring her, and Junpei rushes to her side as she falls, trying again to draw an explanation from her. Chidori explains that she never feared death--what she feared was attachment, and meeting Junpei scared her more than anything ever had, because she feared the day she would no longer be able to be with him. When Takaya shows up and plans to destroy Chidori for turning her back on Strega, Junpei rises to the occasion and cries that he will protect Chidori with his very life.
Takaya shoots Junpei cleanly through the heart, and he drops like a stone.
Chidori proceeds to use all of her power, channeling the life-emitting abilities of her Persona into Junpei to save his life. Unfortunately, this claims her life, and Junpei lives, but only because Chidori loved him enough to die to save him. Furious, Junpei's Persona evolves, and he attacks Jin and Takaya mercilessly before they manage to escape, and then he falls to his knees with grief. It's hard, he says, but "it's not just my life anymore."
Junpei spends the next few days grieving, until her sketchbook arrives, delivered from the hospital. In the book is a very detailed portrait of Junpei, and he crumples to the floor, sobbing. After a moment, he collects himself, and gets back to his feet, apologizing for being the way he's been for so long. Though he has lost the one person he loved more than anything, Junpei resolves to live for both of them now, doing whatever he can to get rid of the Dark Hour and prevent The Fall, to make the world a safer place not so he can feel like a hero, but because it's the right thing to do. Junpei has finally realized that running away isn't the answer, and the only way to stop being a loser and become the person Chidori made him want to be is to face life head-on.
The group goes on to defeat Nyx, but the method varies depending on the player's choices. If you need me to summarize the rest of the story I will be more than happy to do so, but that's most of Junpei's story and the significant events that impact his life. I'm planning to 'pull' him, as it were, from a point prior to Chidori's death anyway, so most of what occurs beyond that event wouldn't have an effective parallel for Sorting Hat.
Background (AU!Canon; HP): Junpei was born January 16th, 1996, to a muggle father and a mother who was an accomplished witch, but never really had a presence in her son's life. Junpei's father Satoshi was once a prestigious volunteer firefighter in [Iwatodai??], and when he pulled a lovely dark-haired woman from a burning building it was love at first sight. One whirlwind romance later, it seemed a shotgun wedding was in order. When a healthy baby boy was born, it seemed like the perfect family, but beneath the happy surface was a faultline that was about to break apart.
Yuzuha had never told Satoshi about her magical abilities, and when he'd gotten her pregnant it had only made her more reluctant to come forward with the information. Satoshi was a simple man who obviously had no inkling of the magical world his wife hailed from, but while she might have been able to hide her power from him forever and live a normal muggle life, having a child changed the playing field completely. Because magical genes were dominant, there was a significant possibility the child would turn out to be magical, and Yuzuha wasn't willing to sacrifice her son's magical education over her fear of her husband's reaction.
When he discovered that his wife was a witch and his son was likely a wizard, Satoshi didn't know how to handle the news. He became angry and started drinking. Whenever Yuzuha brought up the subject of what they were going to do about Junpei's magical education, Satoshi would fly into a rage, behaving violently. He lost his license to be a firefighter due to his drinking, and wound up hopping from one worthless part-time job to another. The family was forced to move from a house into a cramped apartment.
Raised by a wizard and a muggle herself, Yuzuha was familiar enough with the muggle world to get a normal job, but the verbal and physical abuse in the home continued until she couldn't take it anymore. Yuzuha had never been physically strong, but it seemed that her heart was as fragile as the rest of her body: when Junpei was six years old, his mother collapsed after a particularly heated argument. She never got back up.
Suddenly Junpei's whole world was about to be turned on its side. Without his mother to act as a buffer, Junpei had to bear the brunt of his father's temper. Try as he might to earn his father's respect and love, Junpei always found he came up short. He was too young to really understand what his mother had told him about his potential--he didn't really know what it meant to be a wizard--and of course his father had no interest or intention to help him discover his abilities.
And so Junpei immersed himself in the muggle world instead of trying to comprehend the more fantastic aspects of his life. He thought that if he dreamed big, maybe his father would accept and appreciate him. He loved baseball and idolized Ichirou, believing that maybe one day he could become a famous baseball player and live overseas just like he did. Satoshi of course shot this down: what could a freak like Junpei accomplish, after all? Steeped in the idea that he would never be able to achieve his goals because of his 'freakish' lineage, Junpei developed a raging inferiority complex from a very young age, and a sort of Stockholm Syndrome with his abusive father. No matter how much Satoshi drank, no matter how much he talked down to his son, Junpei yearned for his father's acceptance and love.
It never came. Luckily, someone else came into Junpei's life around that time. When a pair of twins his age moved into an adjacent apartment, Junpei latched onto the Arisato children like a barnacle and became very close with them. He had never really had friends before, and so suddenly having two people who seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with him was novel and almost intoxicating. In retrospect, he found himself wondering why they put up with his clinginess...
How would your character fit in to each House?
Gryffindor:
Set Gryffindors apart.
While Junpei's daring and nerve are often ill-placed and are sometimes a mere byproduct of bravado and a need to show off, his chivalry and dedication to his friends are pure enough. No matter how high the stakes or how dangerous the situation, Junpei will always stand by his friends. He would literally die for the people he cares about. If it's 'pointless heroics' you're looking for, Junpei is definitely your man.
Hufflepuff:
And unafraid of toil.
Loyalty may be one of Junpei's strong points, but toil most assuredly is not. He's acceptably honest, certainly seems to adhere to a fair fight, and holds friendship above most things, but he's a below-average student in most subjects less out of ineptitude and more out of lack of interest and ambition. He tried working hard to get what he wanted and no one seemed to pay attention, so he prefers to just skirt along. Why put forth all that effort when doing Just Enough gets the same results?
Ravenclaw:
Will always find their kind.
Junpei may think he's witty, but he's definitely not a scholar. What he lacks in academic aptitude he makes up for with cagey resourcefulness, certainly, but no one would ever accuse Junpei of being a smart cookie.
Slytherin:
To achieve their ends.
Junpei is definitely resourceful, but he's more known for his dumb luck than his cunning. When he tried being ambitious his father shot down his dreams, and so mostly Junpei just flies by the seat of his pants; he's not much for making big plans and doing whatever it takes to achieve them these days. He does have a very honed sense of self-preservation, but it's more escapism than anything else. He'll throw himself headlong into the fray to help his friends, but when faced with his own demons he closes in on himself rather than staring them down. He's also a half-blood, which would probably bring him more harm than anything else in this house.
RP Samples: [Two samples of your choosing go here. They can be either a Journal entry and a Third Person sample, two Journal entries, or two Third Person samples. You can also link to a sample post, or a ten-comment thread in our Dressing Room
There is a Minimum of 200 words required for Third Person samples.]
Third Person Sample: [If you decide to use a Third Person sample, it goes here.]