APPLICATION
NAME: Caitlin
AGE: 35
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
mackleberry
CHARACTER(S): N/A
INVITED BY: Here, invited by Ryn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bountyfull)
NAME: Takuto Maruki
AGE: No exact age given in canon, but generally considered to be in his mid-30s
CANON: Persona 5 Royal
CANON POINT: March 19th/post-canon
CRAU: N/A
OTHER: I know that the other Persona 5 characters historically have needed to regain their masks to be able to have access to their Persona abilities. This doesn't really apply to Maruki – he never has a mask-ripping awakening like the other Persona users in the game do, and is able to utilize his Persona without a traditional summoning. However, if the mods would prefer to keep it consistent for all P5 characters and have him depowered until he regains his mask, I'm totally fine with that! Whatever is easiest for y'all, I am good either way, I only wanted to flag the difference just in case. :3c
SUITABILITY: Maruki has spent a significant amount of time isolated by his own pain and grief, hyper-focused on his cognitive psience research and his impossible dream of ridding the world of all unnecessary suffering and trauma. During the final confrontation in Persona 5 Royal, he is forced to stop running from that pain and face it head on – and when he's seen at the canon point I'm taking him from at the very end of the game, he is finally starting to move on and rebuild his life. A huge part of that will inevitably involve opening his heart up to form bonds in a way that he couldn't before. I'd love the opportunity to explore that in the Golden Peacock setting – it's like a high octane way of making him acknowledge his own desires that have been repressed for so long. Honestly, a sex resort is the exact kind of kick in the pants he needs to move on with his life and reconnect with himself by connecting (wink!!) with others.
HISTORY: Prior to the events of Persona 5 Royal, Maruki was a researcher fascinated with cognitive psience, a field of study pertaining to people's perceptions and how they shape the world around them. He was engaged to a woman named Rumi, on the precipice of starting a new, happy life together – unfortunately (and perhaps unsurprisingly) this never came to pass. While visiting Rumi's family to celebrate her birthday, a home invasion ended in the murder of both of her parents. Rumi survived but was extremely traumatized by the experience, and Maruki had been helpless to do anything to stop it.
Unable to understand why such a senseless tragedy occurred, Maruki fell further into his obsessive cognitive psience research. After six months of catatonia, Rumi broke down and begged him to help her forget what had happened. Unbeknownst to Maruki, this awakened his Persona, a manifestation of his own rebellion against a cruel and unjust reality. This gave him the ability to use the power of Actualization to remove the source of Rumi's pain. In doing so, she lost the memories of the murder of her parents and falsely believed that they had died when she was a baby, leaving her in the care of her grandparents living a normal, happy life– and consequently, she lost her memories of Maruki as well.
This became the driving force of Maruki's mission to use cognitive psience to heal the world of its pain and unhappiness so that no one would have to suffer the way Rumi did. Throughout the course of Persona 5 Royal, he becomes a counselor at Shujin Academy and forms a bond with the protagonist. His own keen observations of the work of the Phantom Thieves in changing criminals' hearts and his conversations with the protagonist help to further his research, to the point that he completes his thesis on cognitive psience's ability to alter reality itself.
On Christmas Eve, a series of events culminating in the Phantom Thieves defeating the god of control Yaldabaoth created a perfect storm in which Maruki and Azathoth could gain access to the collective unconscious and alter the hearts of all of humanity. This effectively brainwashes every resident of Tokyo with the rest of the world implied to not be far behind, their greatest pains erased and their greatest wishes for a happy life granted. The Phantom Thieves eventually confront Maruki on what he calls the day he lost everything: the anniversary of Rumi's parents' murder. A grueling final boss battle takes place, ending with only the protagonist and Maruki squaring off one on one, without any masks guarding their hearts and without their Personas. The protagonist is able to help Maruki see that he's been running from his own immense grief and rage at having to live in such a cruel world – and even when Maruki is fully defeated, ready to die as his perfect reality crumbles, the protagonist saves him and gives him a second chance at life with a changed heart.
ABILITIES: Maruki's abilities stem from his Persona, Azathoth. I've divided up what that entails in three sections below with my proposed nerfs where needed, but if anything is unclear, please feel free to ask for clarification/revision!
VICES:
SELFLESS TO A FAULT: Maruki is a genuinely altruistic person, always focusing on what he can do to help others before he even thinks of helping himself – if he ever does at all. While this comes from a good place, it frequently comes back to bite him, in big ways and in small. He climbs trees to try to help cats and gets scratched up for his efforts, he can't let a stranger in need pass him by without going out of his way to help them, he puts all of his emotional focus onto those around him without ever balancing the scales by opening up his own heart. Even at his post-canon point, with his changed heart and new lease on life, I still think this will always be his biggest struggle. Maruki has spent so much of his life putting all of his energy toward others, he barely knows how to recognize or address his own wants and needs and is always quick to insist that he's fine. This is the main vice that keeps him from bonding with others, and one he'll have to work through constantly in the resort.
AVOIDANT: Maruki fully admits to not being able to cope with his own grief in canon. He's unable to accept what happened to Rumi and her parents, and this only fuels his desire to create a world where something like that never has the possibility of happening to anyone ever again. Rather than dealing with his own completely legitimate trauma and grief, he buries it down deep to focus on his work and on helping others (oh man, are we sensing a theme here?) He is so avoidant of his own issues that after the protagonist learns the truth of what happened to Rumi, he tries to ask Maruki how he feels about his own loss, but Maruki insists that he never suffered – only Rumi did. While his change of heart has helped him to finally face the emotions he'd been running from, he will always be at risk of falling into old habits and burying his head in the sand to avoid dealing with his own feelings.
HYPERFOCUSED: Maruki has a one track mind when it comes to whatever has caught his interest – namely cognitive psience. His fascination with the subject became a fervent desire to further the research field so that its full potential could be unlocked. He threw himself into this wholly and completely, to the point that he was on the precipice of opening up a laboratory entirely dedicated to cognitive psience research before his funding was abruptly cut. Even after that, with his hopes of a true career in the field dashed, he still dedicated his life to his private study. He admits that he can forget to eat or sleep because he's so locked into his work, and it becomes clear that his hyperfocus has kept him from forming meaningful connections with others or addressing his own problems.
VIRTUES:
COMPASSIONATE: What makes Maruki such a compelling antagonist is that at the root of all of his motivations, there does lie a genuinely good (bleeding) heart. He is a kind, caring person – warm and gentle, never one to push people too hard, always willing to offer a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on. His compassion for people is entirely sincere – he'll never be the type to do a good deed and make sure others are watching to laud him for it. He's easily able to put people at ease so they feel comfortable opening up about their struggles, and he will support them in whatever they do to pursue their happiness. He's easy to get along with, and his natural sweet warmth sort of acts like dork rizz, charming those around him into feeling very fondly toward him very quickly. In conclusion, he's literally nice.
DETERMINED: Maruki doesn't give up. It's funny, really – throughout canon, he tells others that if something in their life becomes too painful or difficult, they shouldn't be afraid to give up and pursue a new dream. Does he ever apply that to himself? Not at all. When Maruki sets his mind and heart on a goal, he will stop at nothing to accomplish it. No amount of setbacks or outright defeats can dissuade him. That bright, burning conviction might very well be part of what makes him such a uniquely strong Persona user. Now that he has had his dream of a painless reality forcibly ripped from him and started a new life, he can use that will power and determination to carve out a new path for himself – one that will hopefully lead him to a happier, more fulfilling life.
SINCERE: Puppy dog energy, as they say. While he is shown to occasionally be a little sardonic in his humor, on the whole Maruki is an endearingly earnest person. This means that sometimes the things he says come off as corny, but he wholeheartedly means every word that comes out of his mouth. He's a sincere individual, and he seems to generally assume others are as well – which, yes, does make him easy to trick or even scam. But he always takes people at their word, doesn't doubt their motivations or let his own judgments cloud how he views them. There's absolutely no pretense about him, either – he doesn't try to act cool or tough, instead choosing to embrace his heartfelt nature, no matter how dorky it makes him seem.
SUIT REQUESTS:
♥ HEARTS: For better or for worse, Maruki is a man who feels everything. His heart is a huge, bleeding thing that takes on all of the pains of others. As stated in the suitability section, it's only recently that he was able to face all of the emotions he was holding back – and boy, are there a lot of them. The hearts suit would be ideal for him as a mechanism to explore how he gets back in touch with the feelings he ignored for years... or doesn't, as the case may be. A suit flare is almost inevitable with Maruki here, given that he's so unused to an environment filled with casual sex and relationships, and clumsy with pursuing his own desires at his current canon point. The feelings he's buried for so long resurfacing and twisting into extremes can help to force him into opening his up to others in a way he might be reticent or even frightened to do at times.
♣ CLUBS: Although driven much more by his heart than his head, Maruki is still a man of science – a cognitive researcher by trade, highly knowledgeable about psychology, and all around a huge nerd. It wouldn't be out of the question for him to try to default to reason and logic to keep his self-control intact and not allow himself to open up to others in the resort, and a suit flare breaking down those mental barriers and forcing him to act impulsively would be interesting to explore as well.
RANK REQUESTS: N/A – I'm good with whatever!
SAMPLES:
SAMPLE ONE: GP TDM top level – Obviously these threads are still cooking! But I think it gives a solid indication of how Maruki will integrate into the setting. Includes some gen and some smut threads.
SAMPLE TWO: Meme – Smut thread with Ryotaro Dojima where Maruki is at a similar post-canon canon point to what he would be in GP, full of description and introspection.
SAMPLE THREE: Game – Gen thread with Akira Kurusu wherein they discuss Maruki moving on and trying to want things for himself again at length.
OOC
NAME: Caitlin
AGE: 35
CONTACT:
CHARACTER(S): N/A
INVITED BY: Here, invited by Ryn (
bountyfull)IC
NAME: Takuto Maruki
AGE: No exact age given in canon, but generally considered to be in his mid-30s
CANON: Persona 5 Royal
CANON POINT: March 19th/post-canon
CRAU: N/A
OTHER: I know that the other Persona 5 characters historically have needed to regain their masks to be able to have access to their Persona abilities. This doesn't really apply to Maruki – he never has a mask-ripping awakening like the other Persona users in the game do, and is able to utilize his Persona without a traditional summoning. However, if the mods would prefer to keep it consistent for all P5 characters and have him depowered until he regains his mask, I'm totally fine with that! Whatever is easiest for y'all, I am good either way, I only wanted to flag the difference just in case. :3c
SUITABILITY: Maruki has spent a significant amount of time isolated by his own pain and grief, hyper-focused on his cognitive psience research and his impossible dream of ridding the world of all unnecessary suffering and trauma. During the final confrontation in Persona 5 Royal, he is forced to stop running from that pain and face it head on – and when he's seen at the canon point I'm taking him from at the very end of the game, he is finally starting to move on and rebuild his life. A huge part of that will inevitably involve opening his heart up to form bonds in a way that he couldn't before. I'd love the opportunity to explore that in the Golden Peacock setting – it's like a high octane way of making him acknowledge his own desires that have been repressed for so long. Honestly, a sex resort is the exact kind of kick in the pants he needs to move on with his life and reconnect with himself by connecting (wink!!) with others.
HISTORY: Prior to the events of Persona 5 Royal, Maruki was a researcher fascinated with cognitive psience, a field of study pertaining to people's perceptions and how they shape the world around them. He was engaged to a woman named Rumi, on the precipice of starting a new, happy life together – unfortunately (and perhaps unsurprisingly) this never came to pass. While visiting Rumi's family to celebrate her birthday, a home invasion ended in the murder of both of her parents. Rumi survived but was extremely traumatized by the experience, and Maruki had been helpless to do anything to stop it.
Unable to understand why such a senseless tragedy occurred, Maruki fell further into his obsessive cognitive psience research. After six months of catatonia, Rumi broke down and begged him to help her forget what had happened. Unbeknownst to Maruki, this awakened his Persona, a manifestation of his own rebellion against a cruel and unjust reality. This gave him the ability to use the power of Actualization to remove the source of Rumi's pain. In doing so, she lost the memories of the murder of her parents and falsely believed that they had died when she was a baby, leaving her in the care of her grandparents living a normal, happy life– and consequently, she lost her memories of Maruki as well.
This became the driving force of Maruki's mission to use cognitive psience to heal the world of its pain and unhappiness so that no one would have to suffer the way Rumi did. Throughout the course of Persona 5 Royal, he becomes a counselor at Shujin Academy and forms a bond with the protagonist. His own keen observations of the work of the Phantom Thieves in changing criminals' hearts and his conversations with the protagonist help to further his research, to the point that he completes his thesis on cognitive psience's ability to alter reality itself.
On Christmas Eve, a series of events culminating in the Phantom Thieves defeating the god of control Yaldabaoth created a perfect storm in which Maruki and Azathoth could gain access to the collective unconscious and alter the hearts of all of humanity. This effectively brainwashes every resident of Tokyo with the rest of the world implied to not be far behind, their greatest pains erased and their greatest wishes for a happy life granted. The Phantom Thieves eventually confront Maruki on what he calls the day he lost everything: the anniversary of Rumi's parents' murder. A grueling final boss battle takes place, ending with only the protagonist and Maruki squaring off one on one, without any masks guarding their hearts and without their Personas. The protagonist is able to help Maruki see that he's been running from his own immense grief and rage at having to live in such a cruel world – and even when Maruki is fully defeated, ready to die as his perfect reality crumbles, the protagonist saves him and gives him a second chance at life with a changed heart.
ABILITIES: Maruki's abilities stem from his Persona, Azathoth. I've divided up what that entails in three sections below with my proposed nerfs where needed, but if anything is unclear, please feel free to ask for clarification/revision!
- Actualization – The ability to alter a person's cognition to erase their pain/trauma and grant their wish for their ideal life. Although altruistic in nature, you can imagine the knock-on effects of a character losing the very pain that has shaped them into who they are can mean that it is essentially mind control/brainwashing. This ability will be completely nerfed. At the canon point I've chosen for Maruki, he has already seen the error of his ways with actualizing others and it's not something he would ever do again, so the power being totally nonfunctional would actually be a huge relief for him!
- Offensive capabilities – Below is a heavily modified version of Azathoth's moveset. These are generally the only attacks that I give him access to in a game setting, but it can be edited if needed! None of these powers would be used to destroy the resort or bring harm to its residents.
- Amplify Force – Next Physical attack from Azathoth does 2.5x Damage.
- Amplify Magic – Next Elemental attack from Azathoth does 2.5x Damage.
- Raining Seeds – Heavy Physical Damage to all foes 1-3 times.
- Eternal Radiance – Heavy Bless Damage to all foes. High chance of Dizzy.
- Piercing Strike – Medium Almighty damage 10 times to one foe.
- Tyrant Stance – Prepare for Tyrant Chaos and increase damage of next attack by 2.5x.
- Tyrant Chaos – Severe Almighty Damage to all foes.
- Tentacles!? – Azathoth has a ton of tentacles, but chiefly three larger ones that operate independently of it and provide support/buffs. They are inextricably a part of Azathoth, so the tentacles cannot be summoned on their own, but they have their own strengths/weaknesses while Azathoth has none, and they take their own damage completely separate from Azathoth. If they are killed off, Maruki can regenerate them pretty much instantly. In GP's setting specifically, these would most likely only be used for purposes that Atlus did not intend, but their movesets are below anyway.
- Shield Tendril (passive ability) – Greatly reduces damage from all attacks, including Almighty if all Tentacles are present within party. Slightly reduces damage taken instead if at least one Tentacle is not present.
- Tentacle of Protection – Shapeless Guard: Increase Maruki's defense for 3 turns
- Tentacle of Healing – Energy Stream: Recover medium amount of Maruki's HP
- Tentacle of Assistance – Tarukaja: Increase Attack of 1 ally for 3 turns.
Tarunda: Decrease Attack of 1 foe for 3 turns.
Rakunda: Decrease Defense of 1 foe for 3 turns.
VICES:
SELFLESS TO A FAULT: Maruki is a genuinely altruistic person, always focusing on what he can do to help others before he even thinks of helping himself – if he ever does at all. While this comes from a good place, it frequently comes back to bite him, in big ways and in small. He climbs trees to try to help cats and gets scratched up for his efforts, he can't let a stranger in need pass him by without going out of his way to help them, he puts all of his emotional focus onto those around him without ever balancing the scales by opening up his own heart. Even at his post-canon point, with his changed heart and new lease on life, I still think this will always be his biggest struggle. Maruki has spent so much of his life putting all of his energy toward others, he barely knows how to recognize or address his own wants and needs and is always quick to insist that he's fine. This is the main vice that keeps him from bonding with others, and one he'll have to work through constantly in the resort.
AVOIDANT: Maruki fully admits to not being able to cope with his own grief in canon. He's unable to accept what happened to Rumi and her parents, and this only fuels his desire to create a world where something like that never has the possibility of happening to anyone ever again. Rather than dealing with his own completely legitimate trauma and grief, he buries it down deep to focus on his work and on helping others (oh man, are we sensing a theme here?) He is so avoidant of his own issues that after the protagonist learns the truth of what happened to Rumi, he tries to ask Maruki how he feels about his own loss, but Maruki insists that he never suffered – only Rumi did. While his change of heart has helped him to finally face the emotions he'd been running from, he will always be at risk of falling into old habits and burying his head in the sand to avoid dealing with his own feelings.
HYPERFOCUSED: Maruki has a one track mind when it comes to whatever has caught his interest – namely cognitive psience. His fascination with the subject became a fervent desire to further the research field so that its full potential could be unlocked. He threw himself into this wholly and completely, to the point that he was on the precipice of opening up a laboratory entirely dedicated to cognitive psience research before his funding was abruptly cut. Even after that, with his hopes of a true career in the field dashed, he still dedicated his life to his private study. He admits that he can forget to eat or sleep because he's so locked into his work, and it becomes clear that his hyperfocus has kept him from forming meaningful connections with others or addressing his own problems.
VIRTUES:
COMPASSIONATE: What makes Maruki such a compelling antagonist is that at the root of all of his motivations, there does lie a genuinely good (bleeding) heart. He is a kind, caring person – warm and gentle, never one to push people too hard, always willing to offer a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on. His compassion for people is entirely sincere – he'll never be the type to do a good deed and make sure others are watching to laud him for it. He's easily able to put people at ease so they feel comfortable opening up about their struggles, and he will support them in whatever they do to pursue their happiness. He's easy to get along with, and his natural sweet warmth sort of acts like dork rizz, charming those around him into feeling very fondly toward him very quickly. In conclusion, he's literally nice.
DETERMINED: Maruki doesn't give up. It's funny, really – throughout canon, he tells others that if something in their life becomes too painful or difficult, they shouldn't be afraid to give up and pursue a new dream. Does he ever apply that to himself? Not at all. When Maruki sets his mind and heart on a goal, he will stop at nothing to accomplish it. No amount of setbacks or outright defeats can dissuade him. That bright, burning conviction might very well be part of what makes him such a uniquely strong Persona user. Now that he has had his dream of a painless reality forcibly ripped from him and started a new life, he can use that will power and determination to carve out a new path for himself – one that will hopefully lead him to a happier, more fulfilling life.
SINCERE: Puppy dog energy, as they say. While he is shown to occasionally be a little sardonic in his humor, on the whole Maruki is an endearingly earnest person. This means that sometimes the things he says come off as corny, but he wholeheartedly means every word that comes out of his mouth. He's a sincere individual, and he seems to generally assume others are as well – which, yes, does make him easy to trick or even scam. But he always takes people at their word, doesn't doubt their motivations or let his own judgments cloud how he views them. There's absolutely no pretense about him, either – he doesn't try to act cool or tough, instead choosing to embrace his heartfelt nature, no matter how dorky it makes him seem.
SUIT REQUESTS:
♥ HEARTS: For better or for worse, Maruki is a man who feels everything. His heart is a huge, bleeding thing that takes on all of the pains of others. As stated in the suitability section, it's only recently that he was able to face all of the emotions he was holding back – and boy, are there a lot of them. The hearts suit would be ideal for him as a mechanism to explore how he gets back in touch with the feelings he ignored for years... or doesn't, as the case may be. A suit flare is almost inevitable with Maruki here, given that he's so unused to an environment filled with casual sex and relationships, and clumsy with pursuing his own desires at his current canon point. The feelings he's buried for so long resurfacing and twisting into extremes can help to force him into opening his up to others in a way he might be reticent or even frightened to do at times.
♣ CLUBS: Although driven much more by his heart than his head, Maruki is still a man of science – a cognitive researcher by trade, highly knowledgeable about psychology, and all around a huge nerd. It wouldn't be out of the question for him to try to default to reason and logic to keep his self-control intact and not allow himself to open up to others in the resort, and a suit flare breaking down those mental barriers and forcing him to act impulsively would be interesting to explore as well.
RANK REQUESTS: N/A – I'm good with whatever!
SAMPLES:
SAMPLE ONE: GP TDM top level – Obviously these threads are still cooking! But I think it gives a solid indication of how Maruki will integrate into the setting. Includes some gen and some smut threads.
SAMPLE TWO: Meme – Smut thread with Ryotaro Dojima where Maruki is at a similar post-canon canon point to what he would be in GP, full of description and introspection.
SAMPLE THREE: Game – Gen thread with Akira Kurusu wherein they discuss Maruki moving on and trying to want things for himself again at length.
