junpei_iori

Work in progress!

OOC Information
Player Name: Jojo
Player Age: 26
Player Contact: AIM: bluelucine
Plurk: lucineblue
tumblr: lucineblue
Player/Character HMD: How am I doing?
Other characters in game: N/A

IC Information
Character Name: Junpei Iori
Character Canon: Persona 3 Portable AU – Female Route, Chidori not revived, Shinjiro saved
Character Age/Gender: 17, male
Canon Point: Post Game, after Minako’s death
Character Canon History: Wiki entry here!

Character Personality: On the surface, Junpei seems like a pretty simple person; your average teenage boy. He’s not great at school but loves PE, loves cracking jokes, has his eyes out for pretty girls and enjoys hanging out with his friends and playing video games. Not much else to him, you know? He’s pretty average in all respects.

But that would be a very superficial look at who Junpei is as a person. In a lot of ways Junpei is just an average Joe; he’s strong, but not the strongest, he’s good looking but not drop dead gorgeous, he’s definitely not the smartest there is in school, his marks constantly being pretty low. What’s interesting is that Junpei is perfectly aware of this, and working with people who seem so much more talented than him in many respects makes him uncomfortable and insecure in his averageness at times.

Junpei loves to joke around. None of his friends, even his senpai’s are immune to his ability to crack a joke and poke fun at them. He loves teasing them; though one can take it as a way he shows affection to people he likes and cares about. He’s also not above to making pervy jokes to his female friends, much to their own chagrin. But he honestly means no harm in it (…unless they’d actually take him up on his offer, otherwise he’d probably stutter, blush and try to brush it off as them turning the joke on him). He prefers going with the flow, trying to keep things casual and remind people that freaking out and worrying over things you can’t control isn’t healthy, or any fun! In some ways, Junpei’s pretty laid back about things; during the Summer Beach Trip he tried his best to get everyone’s mind of the interpersonal issues in SEES and focus on the fact that HEY WE’RE AT A BEACH LET’S HAVE FUN. …Not that it worked too well, sadly, people misunderstanding his efforts as him not caring at all.

Junpei also has a lot of bravado. Whenever there’s a fight, you can count that he’ll be up for the challenge, raring to go. He’ll also tend to talk big about his abilities, though he’s oddly willing to admit at times even he has his weakness, like how Hermes, his original Persona, was great at physical and fire attacks, but wind could completely fry him. He seems on the surface to take his weaknesses in stride, like they don’t matter, but the issues goes a bit deeper than this.

As mentioned before, Junpei’s pretty aware he’s just ‘average’ in terms of a lot of things. But he’s also pretty insecure about that fact as well. He tries to brush aside his own insecurities with humor and bravado, but they can once in a while make him actually lash out. Notable was how he got mad at the Protagonist (Minako, in this case) for being the leader and being able to keep her cool when Junpei knew he couldn’t. Deep down inside, as he eventually works out, he realises it’s not about Minako’s abilities, it’s about his own lack of abilities. Despite the fact Junpei can wield a persona, and does so in order to take on shadows and defend the city and save the people in it, due to the fact it would cause an outright panic, no one in the city but a few actually know about the threat. And even with his power, he’s STILL just average—he only has Hermes (And later Trismegistus), while the Leader, Minako, had more than he could keep track of—his team mates were some of the most popular people in school, the most talented, the smartest, everything he wasn’t. And he couldn’t even tell anyone what he was doing to save the city… just forced to keep quiet about it. And once the shadows went away, he’d be completely average again, with nothing going for him in his life that he could see.

Junpei wanted to be more than just average to someone, ANYONE. He wanted his life to have worth to someone, to be able to mean something to someone. In the end, Junpei was desperate for affection and love, and a lot of his issues steam from that deep seated need.
In this respect, him meeting and falling love with Chidori Yoshino had a huge effect on him. At first sort of curious about the strange girl and then concerned about her bleeding and seeming so non-chalant about it, Junpei developed an affection towards the mysterious but beautiful girl… and in an effort to impress her, told her a half lie—that he was involved in a team that was saving the city from the perils of the mysterious shadows… but he made himself out to be the leader. Unfortunately for him, this was a mistake—as Chidori herself was a member of a group opposing SEES known as Strega, and a fellow Persona user, though the term is used loosely as she constantly struggled to control the violent Medea.

But despite being kidnapped and nearly killed by the girl, Junpei stood by her even after he was rescued. He went to visit her every day in the hospital while she recuperated from her injuries sustained that night, trying to make sure she was happy, watching her draw day after day. In some ways, his own desperation to be wanted, to be loved, to be a hero to someone, anyone—drove him to be there always for Chidori, even when his visits weren't received too warmly.

Then came the day Chidori sacrificed her life for his after he was fatally shot defending her. Feeling the weight of her sacrifice on his shoulders, and after seeing proof later that she sincerely did love him, Junpei became more determined to make sure no more sacrifices would be needed, that he would work to help and protect his friends—regardless of acclaim or praise or anything else… simply because it was the right thing to do, because his friends were depending on him, and his own refusal to waste the gift Chidori had given him. He’d still make jokes, and try to ease the tension around the dorm and tease his friends, but underneath all that was a loyal friend and team mate who’d never leave them. Ever.

But soon two more friends would follow: Ryoji, and Minako Arisato.

Losing so many people in such a short time would take a toll on anyone, Junpei included, though he’d do his best not to show it. Though the rest of the team was beginning to fall apart in grief, he had to try to stay positive for their sakes as well as his own. Losing Chidori in some ways prepared him for this loss, however; even if it’s painful, and it sucks, he can’t just give up. He’s got too much to live for, he’s got to honour both Chidori’s and Minako’s memories by going on with life and figuring out what he wants to do. Right now though, it’s trying to figure out how to keep his friends together. Because he needs them too.

In terms of his good points, Junpei is quite physically strong; his best class is P.E. and he used to play baseball when he was younger. He’s got good hand eye coordination thanks to playing baseball and video games so much. He’s also very street smart; he tends to know what’s going on in town before anyone else due to his ability to pick up gossip. He’ll learn the best places to go, the places you SHOULDN’T go, and other such details way before most people. Junpei is very congenial. He’s not afraid to start up a conversation with others and joke and tease people, and social situations don’t phase him much at all.

In terms of his weaknesses, the intellectual, Junpei is not. He’s not really inclined to study and the traditional Japanese method of ‘study till you pass out’ really doesn’t do much for getting things to stick in his head. He’s kinda come to grips with the fact he’ll never do well in school, but living in a country like Japan where education and getting into a good college is everything, it’s sort of a sore spot for him.
Junpei can also be rather brash; he’ll jump head long into a situation without too much thought to his own safety. In the past it was more so to prove himself; presently it’s more likely to happen if he’s trying to defend someone he cares about, like one of his friends from SEES.
He still does have those insecurity and jealousy issues as well, though he has been trying to deal with them in a more mature way lately.

AU Information: Being from a female path in Persona 3 Portable, Junpei replaced Kenji as the Magician Social Link, making much about his interests and family life easily accessible to Minako. He bonded with her over movies and video games, and confessed his father’s issues with drinking and the abuse he suffered for it rather sheepishly. Also, when it was discovered that some guy was passing around pictures of Minako from the volley ball club, despite what one might initially think by what he’d tease Yukari about, Junpei was deeply upset by Minako being taken advantage of like this, and helped track down the guy who was passing around the pictures, strengthening his and Minako’s bond of friendship. During the Femc Route, Junpei does mention initial hesitance and disbelief that a ‘girl’ should lead the SEES team, but he is quickly put in his place by Mitsuru, and learns eventually why she was chosen as leader over him, and comes to respect her for her leadership and strength, though some jealousy still lingers.

Character Abilities: Being of the Magician Arcana, Junpei’s main supernatural ability is being able to summon a Persona; using a gun shaped evoker to literally invoke the fear of dying in him, he can summoned his shadow tamed and given an ego, known as Trismegistus. Trismegistus is for the most part a physical fighter with some buffing and fire-magic abilities; one of the most noticeable skills he has is ‘Spring of Life’, which regenerates some of his health over time during the course of a battle. This has been noted to also heal small wounds he receives rather quickly, so things like paper cuts are no big deal to him anymore!

His abilities are:
Spring of Life – Health Regen
Agidyne – Single target powerful fire spell
Vorpal Blade – Massive Physical attack to all enemies
Deathbound – Massive Physical attack to all enemies with a high critical rate
Marakukaja – Raises all allies physical defense for three turns
High Counter- High chance of countering a physical attack
Fire Break – Nulls one enemies fire resistance for 3 turns
Gigantic Fist – Large amount of damage to one enemy

Character Inventory:
Evoker- A gun shaped device that is used to summon Persona by placing it to one’s head and pulling the trigger.
School Uniform – Summer/Winter outfits
Casual clothing – Summer/Winter outfits
Cellphone
His wallet- including school ID and a 1000 yen note
Handheld Game system
Butler gag outfit
Galahad’s sword
Armor of Light/Shoes of Light
Agni Bracers
Sketchbook

Samples:

Third Person Sample:

Junpei sat on the bed of his new apartment, staring at the wall opposite of him; his mind still processing all that had happened.
How… how could this be possible? He’d just spent the night talking to Fuuka, still mourning the loss of their friends from the year passed—
And suddenly they found themselves in a completely new city, shaky, bewildered, and faced with Minako. Their Minako, back from the dead—no, according to her, she was from a few months back, before the final battle they’d faced together, before they’d all forgotten what had happened. In that situation, no one could blame him for crying a little, right?

And then it got weirder; Akihiko-senpai and Shinjiro-senpai where there as well, as well as… two guys who looked like identical twins. Blue hair, piercing eyes, and knew him and Fuuka by name. Minato Arisato, supposedly lead them in Minako’s stead. But what did that even mean?! Junpei read a lot of shonen manga, sure, and alternate dimensions and different versions of the same characters were all over the place, but for that to seriously happen, and have two of them, and--

“G-guuuuh…”

Junpei groaned, flopping back onto his bed and covering his eyes with both hands. His head was spinning—trying to understand all this was just impossible for him. He thought the Dark Hour was confusing, hah! Compared to this, it was nothing.

He slowly dragged his hands down his face, before just staring up at the ceiling. Apparently in this world, they had to hug or touch one another to keep themselves from feeling sick—like he and Fuuka did at the start. It would also help out the town, make things better for the people living here… and maybe eventually they could be sent back.

But thinking back to what he and Fuuka left behind, all the pain and sorrow, Junpei couldn’t help but wonder…

“…Do I really wanna go back…?”

The scary part was, he wasn’t even really sure.

After a long, hard stare at the ceiling, Junpei finally came up with his solution to the situation at hand.

“…No point worrying about it right now, is there?”

For whatever reason he and Fuuka were brought here, and he’d do his damnest to keep her healthy; it seemed peaceful, and they’d been given a second chance with a dear friend. There wasn’t anything he could do… so why worry about it till something happened?

…Maybe he should sleep on it a bit.

Thread Sample:
The Bitter Full Moon

 We all know war can be a hard time for everyone but those left behind? It can be torture. Hoping you get a letter or a call, staying glued to the television and cringing at those news stories. Guess what happens to you now? Your loved one has gone off to fight a war (battle, fight, in that ilk of things) and some time has passed. Sadly the letters and e-mails have stopped so you are left wondering the fate of your loved one. What do you do? Do you move on or are you holding on to hope they'll come back?