Application [Empatheias]

[hamnation]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Gore
Contact: goreo
Age: 26
Current Characters: Steven Quartz Universe (jamminshield)


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Gundam Tanaka
Age: Gundam is being played as a manifestation of his digital avatar, which is at the approximate age of 17. His real body is at least around 19-20 years old.
Canon: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Canon Point: Post-Chapter 4

Background: DR Wiki

Personality:

Gundam Tanaka is a moody and prideful teenager who tends to be arrogant and standoffish in most situations. One of the things that sticks out the most about him would be the way that he speaks to others. Gundam almost always communicates in terms of hyperbolic statements that usually use references to a variety of supernatural phenomena, such as the occult, religions, magic, alchemy and works of fiction even when talking about mundane matters, which he often equates to manners of life-or-death. He usually employs as formal wording as possible and refers to most others in a derisive manner which paints them as weak and flawed humans, while setting himself apart from them. He casually threatens others as well, even with claims that he cannot live up to. The exact terms he uses change all the time, but Gundam always refers to himself as inhuman and as some sort of lord of darkness or evil who is capable of unbelievable and occasionally even heroic feats.

The way he speaks and acts are designed to paint an extremely edgey image of himself which tries to make him appear to be superior to all of those around him. Most of what he says may seem to be tall tales, but often there are partial truths hidden in his words. For example, he once claimed that he was fed poison throughout his youth, and it turned out that was his way of referencing his mother's bad cooking. He will avoid directly acknowledging the falsehoods in his statements at almost all times and he covers up any apparent contradictions with further ridiculous explanations.

By exploring Gundam's reasons for acting in this manner, more of his personality comes to light. For one, Gundam is a very guarded person when it comes to trusting others and he is especially anxious about letting other people near him. When he talks about his childhood in his free time events, he recalls that he manipulated situations to avoid getting involved in school activities that called for close contact between students. He also makes up a variety of excuses to keep Hinata from moving close to him in the free time events. It is eventually shown that he is suspicious of Hinata's apparent friendliness and fears the idea of being betrayed. This seems to imply one reason for Gundam's persona: he prefers to push people away with his behavior because he worries that people would only want to get close to him to betray him or mock him in some way. Thus, he often acts standoffish as well as rude and demeaning to others. However, though it may not be easy or quick at all, it is possible to get close enough to Gundam to earn trust and the right to physical contact (even if it's for the sake of pledging a death contract).

Simple things like respecting or appreciating his animals, or tolerating his odd ways, or even playing along in some genuine way, can help Gundam to be relatively nicer and more respectful in response. Gundam is also generally more respectful towards people who have actual powers and/or who are of a noble status. He will still often try to deny or downplay most affection that he has for others in an attempt to maintain his edgey persona. Gundam refers to the type of person whom he would let close to him as a 'singularity', "a being who can make the impossible possible by overcoming various limitations". This may simply mean someone who manages to impress Gundam with acts of kindness towards him and his animals. He will be loyal towards those he manages to trust, as reflected in how agreeable he is with Sonia, and in how he ate his mother's horrible cooking to keep her from crying. He's even the type of person to make a trusted friend agree to a contract in which that person (within the game Hinata) is not allowed to die without Gundam's permission.

Gundam Tanaka's behavior is also influenced by his strong sense of pride. He is intent on appearing to be as competent as possible (or even beyond human possibility), and that enhances his boasts. This sense of pride is very evident in the fourth trial. At one point in that trial, Komaeda attempted to sum up the case, and Gundam initially seemed resigned to it, until Komaeda suggested that Gundam did not try to battle with Nekomaru. This angered Gundam and caused him to make another stand in trying to defend himself from the murder charge. Additionally, it is shown that during his confrontation with Nekomaru as well as in the last moments before being taken to his execution, Gundam remained committed to his act and tried to deny that he had committed the crime for any reason other than coldblooded malice. This not only shows his pride, but also the way in which he uses it to cover up how his true emotions and sensitivity.

Being the ultimate breeder, Gundam is primarily comfortable with animals, and he trusts them more implicitly than humans. While he hates being close to other humans, he will instead often be close to other animals, and he seems to consider them to be more honest due to their lack of speech. He will rarely consider an animal to be its actual species, however, and he will instead claim the creature to be something else entirely. He refers to the hamsters that always accompany him as the Dark Devas of Destruction, and he insists that they are entities who have only temporarily taken on the forms of hamsters. He is also shown to refer to dogs as hell hounds or a cerberus, and to birds as phoenixes. He seems to do this because of his sense of pride, to try to cover his sensitivity towards animals, and to make raising animals seem like an edgier and more exciting venture. Still, even around other humans, he can often let his wall down when speaking to animals, as he often puts on an uncharacteristically sincere smile when tending to his dark devas, and he is not above talking to them in cutesy ways. Sometime, he even tries to blend cutesy words into his edgey way of speaking, such as when he claims that one reason he does not trust Monokuma or Monomi is simply because he does not consider them to be 'cute'. He generally has a respect to animal life, and he is specifically depressed by the plight of livestock that are raised for the sole purpose of being slaughtered for food.

Despite Gundam's commitment to the way he acts, there are some instances in which he breaks character more entirely. One, unexpected compliments (especially from Sonia) can cause him to become flustered and briefly stammer his words. Another is that whenever he hears someone else say something that seems cool to him, Gundam will remark something in the fashion of "That's a good line," as if he's an actor comparing notes. During serious cases such as trials, Gundam may sometimes resort to using normal words to describe some details of the crime, although he still mixes in metaphors. He has also broken his act sometimes when being serious and sincere with others. This was most notably shown in the aftermath of the third trial, when he tried to help Sonia feel better about the case's events with some poignant advice, delivered without any metaphor. Kuzuryuu even pointed out how uncharacteristic he sounded, at which point he returned to his normal attitude and threatened Kuzuryuu.

He is also someone who strongly values the right to live, and that ends up being part of the motive that drives him to kill. In Chapter 4, the group was trapped in a funhouse with no food, and Monokuma would only release them when a killing occurred. Hinata was resolved to the idea that they would rather starve to death than let another killing happen. This attitude offended Gundam, because he considers giving up on life to be an insult to life itself. He also considers the concept of 'dog eat dog', wherein one animal must sometimes sacrifice another to survive. He believed in clinging to life by any means necessary without giving up on it, and it is this thinking which lead to Gundam murdering the mechanical version of Nekomaru Nidai, so that everyone would have a chance to survive. Gundam even practically sacrificed himself in the trial with the minimal resistance that he put up towards the case against him. This also seems to reflect how his position in the group shifted over time; during the first case, he chose to search for his missing hell hound earring instead of helping to investigate the first murder, and he sat on what turned out to be a vital clue until Hinata thought to question him about it. But he began to help more in later investigations and ended up throwing in the towel when he was the murderer, so that everyone else could live on instead of him.

It should also be noted that Gundam is not someone who truly wants to justify or receive pity for what he did. He talks about his motive in order to honor Nekomaru and not to try to evoke sympathy for himself, and he attests several times during his confession that he does not to force his own beliefs on others. For that reason, he commits to his ridiculous act to until it is time to execute him, in order to hide his true feelings and play the role of the villain. He only shows sincerity towards his dark devas in their farewell, as well as in his last moments during his execution.

Abilities:

Gundam Tanaka may like to pretend that he has all sorts of incredible abilities worthy of a Deviantart OC, but he really is an ordinary human for the most part. His primary skills are in the breeding and training of animals, especially hamsters. He's trained his hamsters to be able to perform very specific tasks, including pressing buttons and retrieving out-of-reach items. Although he does seem to activate an alchemical circle in his execution scene, it does nothing, and I chalk its apparent activation up to just being a stylistic effect of the execution (as many of the executions are cartoonishly unrealistic in nature, possibly due to being in a virtual world) not meant to be taken literally. Thus I will treat alchemy as another power that Gundam only 'pretends' to have.

Alignment: Piphron. Trust seems to be an important part of Gundam's character, as he elaborates in his free time events with his reluctance towards letting people get close to him as well as his fear of being betrayed.

Other: To sum up his situation: as a young adult, he was part of the remnants of the Ultimate Despair group. However, they ended up in the custody of a group that placed them in an advanced virtual reality for the purpose of trying to 'cure' them of despair. Although his real body remained the same, in the virtual world his digital avatar took on the form of his younger self, when he first started attending Hope's Peak, and his memories were taken away to match that point. Thus, I am playing Gundam in the form of his digital avatar as seen in the game, who is currently lacking his school memories and memories of Ultimate Despair, although I intend to have him regain at least some of his school memories eventually at the very least.

His four dark devas are already in Empatheias in the care of Sonia Nevermind. So he'll just be coming with his normal accessories like his hell hound earring.


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
Sample: Test Drive!

Questions: None!