Carvaka Application

[scumly]

APPLICATION
▸PLAYER
Name: Jo
Means of Contact: watership or scumly
Age: 22
Other Characters Played: N/A

▸CHARACTER
Name: Komaeda Nagito
Journal: scumly
Canon: Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Age: Anywhere between 18-21
Canon Point: Somewhere after he "died". Heavy emphasis on those quotes.

Background Information: Komaeda's Background \\ Canon Background

Personality:
| “... I'm Nagito Komaeda. Nice to meet you.” |
Nagito Komaeda is the first person that the protagonist is formally introduced to. He appears to be a sincere, kind boy who is both considerate and respectful of those around him. He shows blatant worry towards the protagonist (Hinata Hajime) as Hinata had just passed out and was the last to wake. Enough that he had waited around for him to wake up so that he could properly greet him and ensure that he was alright. He is openly curious about everyone and everything and although he comes across as a bit clingy and bordering on desperate, he appears to have no malicious intent. The protagonist, though hesitant to accept Nagito's offer of friendship, gradually grows to like the boy despite the fact that he is the tiniest bit overbearing. Nagito is helpful and wishes to explore the island along with Hinata to try and understand the situation as much as Hinata wants to. It appears as though Nagito will be aiding Hinata throughout the rest of the game, serving as a valuable secondary character.

He shows honest respect towards the women of the island. When there are inappropriate remarks being made towards them, he openly will speak out against the instigator and shame them for being so rude and perverted. He also makes it very clear that he will put his down before any sexual harassment happens in front of him and promises to ensure that in the future. He treats both women and men with the same brand of kindness and a desire for friendship.

When the first murder occurs, Nagito is eager to help Hinata and the others investigate what had happened.

And then the trial for the first murder occurs and everything changes.

| “Do you understand? Hope is a positive force... Everything created by it is an absolute good!” |

Nagito Komaeda flips like a switch. At the beginning of the trial, he seems interested in helping keep the peace and making sure everyone stays on target. He appears to be as invested in figuring out what had happened as everyone else does. He seems to be the same Nagito that we have been dealing with since the start of the game. However, as the trial progresses, Nagito begins to change his story and his opinions on the matter at hand back and forth, back and forth. It feels particularly ominous considering up until the point of the trial, he had seemed like a very agreeable and generally honest person. He gradually begins to grow more and more drastic until he finally says something to stir up everyone at the trial. "Instead of surviving by doubting others, isn't it better to get killed for believing in others?" In which is an instant remark that basically entails that he thinks that everyone should just plunge ahead and risk killing themselves. Everyone instantly begins to tell Nagito that it's not the right way of thinking.

From there on, Nagito's true begins to show through little by little. For a hot second, it appears as though Nagito is only having an emotional breakdown because he doesn't want to be in a situation where he wants his friends to be pointing fingers at each other and saying "murderer!" which would be an understandable situations, as others quickly come to agree with Nagito that no, no one wants to be in that position either. It sends everyone into an emotional frenzy as they all begin to freak out about how they don't want to be forced to deal with a murder trial concerning one of their friends and thinking about how one of their other friends might have been the one to have killed that person and about how they all just want to go home. Except as everyone continues to freak out, Nagito begins to speak again in a too-calm voice, feeding into the paranoia rising in the room, displaying the first touch of his manipulative side more directly.

He attempts to persuade everyone to just give up already and that it's pointless. That's when he's called out by a fellow classmate after a quick discussion on how the murder could have happened and all clues point directly to him being the suspect.

Nagito Komaeda snaps. Any attempt to hold back on his true personality is shed from him in one manic moment of dizzying madness. It is instantly evident how unstable Nagito actually is. He breaks down into an excited tangent about how he had wanted to bring about "true hope" to his classmates by starting the killing on the island. He genuinely appears to believe that killing one another is a path that could be lead to the absolute purest type of hope out there. His passion and drive of hope becomes explicitly pronounced in this moment and continues to be a theme of his character for the rest of the game. Hope is everything that Nagito aspires to be and hope is everything that drives him forward. He shows no real regret in what he had tried to achieve (as it were, he actually failed at murdering the first victim).

It is worth mentioning that this is the only instance in the entire game in which Nagito has a generic "psychotic" moment. Otherwise, his mental instability is far more subdued. He doesn't typically just cackle with insanity and throw massive fits of wild ideas and notions. He definitely has manic tangents in the future but this is the only time he has a breakdown. I do believe this was intended purely for the sake of a reveal moment in which people could very clearly understand the type of person that Nagito is.

| “All of you posses the qualities needed to be able to embody it... Do you understand? Hope, in other words, is a proactive will and talent... It's an absolute "good" that's brought forth by that! That's why, as long as there exist seeds of hope, I'll gladly kill a person... and gladly die myself. Since right now, my reason for living like this is hope itself!” |

He had thoroughly planned his attempted murder of the first victim in the desire to inspire "hope" in his classmates. His idea of hope is extremely distorted from the average person's idea of hope. While his general ideals about hope land right on the mark and in hindsight seem beautiful and wonderful, as it is his dream to see a world filled with hope, it is the pathway to hope that he finds appropriate to be disturbing. He really does think that murder can be used as a tool of achieving hope. This does not mean that it is the only form of hope he can determine. He does recognize more common forms of hope and ones that typical people would be able to appreciate but for their current situation, he rationalizes that "By killing people and solving murders, it births a hope in each of us to get off of this island and out of this situation!"

Which, in a strange roundabout way, does make some sort of sense. Anyone in that predicament would have "hope" to leave it by any means necessary although unlike a typical person, he does not seem to be able to distinguish between right and wrong but only hope and despair. To him, a murder of hope is a murder attempted in the "hope" of escaping. But a murder to just kill with no other purpose besides that is a murder attempted in "despair" thus leaving him in agony and frustration. The only time he shows regret over a classmate dying is when the murder was "out of despair" and had no real purpose other than to....well....murder!

| “I mean, killing someone for the sake of despair, instead of for the sake of hope... There's no way I can forgive that.” |

Nagito is not just the stereotypical psychotic antagonist. He does not just simply serve the role of the lunatic who has no real root cause of his lunacy. As a matter of fact, Nagito has more grounds for insanity than most characters typically do. It doesn't begin with a tragic backstory of how his family was killed in front of him either. It is revealed later on through free time events with Nagito that he has lymphoma which has progressed frontotemporal lobe dementia. Common symptoms of dementia include but are not limited to: Disinhibition, apathy, lack of empathy or sympathy, drastic social behavioral changes, compulsive behavior, and delusions. It is also common in FLD patients to experience anxiety and bouts of depression although these typically give way to apathy later on in development. It is unclear as to how far along he is in his stage of lymphoma and dementia but it is obvious that the latter is a definite root cause to why he acts the way that he does.

Another reason that Nagito acts the way that he does could easily be blamed on the fact that he is literally the product of a cult. This part is a bit canon-thick and spoiler-heavy but I will try and make things as clear cut as possible. The Ultimate Despair was an organization founded by Junko Enoshima. The point of the organization was to drive the world to the ultimate despair thus resulting in "The Tragedy" otherwise known as "The Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident in the History of Mankind". She and the Ultimate Despair caused an incredible and vast social unrest throughout the world. The world was thus broken apart into waves of chaos, violence, death, and true anarchy. The Ultimate Despair was made up of several Super High School Level students of Hope's Peak and evidence of their thorough brainwashing by Junko is very clear in the extreme acts of loyalty that they had performed because of her. (Trigger warning: some kind of fucked up stuff ahoy- proceed with caution) Things like removing an eye and replacing it with one of her's after her death. Komaeda even cut off his own hand to replace it with one of hers. Another one replaced their own reproductive parts with Junko's reproductive parts. One character starved themselves to death for Junko. Another slaughtered their family. One gunned down a bunch of completely innocent people to show her her dedication. Even post death, many of these people were still under her influence and completely brainwashed.

The reason that I do emphasize on the brainwashing bit is the entire point of Danganronpa 2 is that the entire cast of the game are actually members of Ultimate Despair. They were all sent into this virtual reality in an attempt to see whether or not they could be "restored to their former selves" otherwise implying that before they were conditioned to Junko's influence, many of them were actually very good people or at least people who wouldn't think to do things like kill their family members or rip apart their own bodies. Hence why their memories were completely wiped out for the past few years of their high school experience and reduced back to the very first day of school before any of them even met Junko Enoshima. Nagito was a victim to all of this as well and it definitely does not help with his mental problems.

| “Personally, I think it shows great courage to try understand something you don't understand.” |

Nagito is not all bad. Even after it is apparent that he is mentally unstable, he still has certain aspects that the player has seen at the very beginning of the game. Although this isn't really headcanon per say but personal interjection, I have to say that it is in my personal belief (and probably the belief of others) that if Nagito did not suffer from dementia and brainwashing, he would actually be a relatively kind person and very pleasant to be around. His certain insecurities and rash behavior might stick with him but it does not seem that he is completely rotten to the core with the insanity bug. Even Hinata continues to show hope in Nagito throughout the rest of the game and continuously attempts to try and understand the boy. He does not entirely reject him even after it is made clear what kind of person he is and this flusters Nagito to no end.

While Nagito continues to be an antagonist to the protagonist, he does serve his role in helping. He is clearly a very logical and rational person on a day to day basis. He's clever and intelligent, oftentimes figuring out things well before his classmates. He doesn't always string them along just for the amusement in watching them struggle but rather in hopes to see them "achieve hope on their own". He says quite a few times that it is his "hope in them, those who are so talented, so much more talented than me" that he believes that they can do absolutely anything in the world that they put their minds to- including solving murders. He's kind of a very backwards character in that he is very optimistic and hopeful and encourages his classmates continuously but the way in which he does it is not exactly....welcomed.

Disregarding the occasional manic lapses he has in which he goes on tangents about hope and how disgusting he is and how he is unworthy of the talented people he is surrounded by, Nagito is actually a surprisingly calm person. He doesn't often freak out, if ever, and he can keep his cool in alarming situations. He is usually fairly zen and a relatively neat person who isn't all that farfetched in his likes and dislikes. He's not so outlandish as to have a bunch of weird personality quirks and interests to match up to the rest of him and even post-reveal of his insanity, he still does appear to hold a respect for the other people on the island. Especially because he puts them on such a high pedestal, complimenting them profusely on their talents.

He does seem to have a bit of an extreme self-worth problem. He really does seem to see himself as undeserving dirt unworthy of being in the presence of his talented classmates. As it were, he was the "lucky" student who got selected by Hope's Peak Academy to attend the school and beyond that luck, he is "untalented" and "extremely plain". He sees himself as a stepping stone to his classmates and is more than happy to sacrifice his life or be tortured or be a scapegoat if it means to serve his classmates "in achieving hope!" He makes constant comments throughout the game pertaining to this. Things like how he deserves to be treated like scum, that Hinata can walk all over him if he wants, etc etc.

| “Please, don’t forget... From the bottom of my heart...I am truly in love with the hope that sleeps inside you.” - to Hinata |

Nagito's relationship with the main character, Hinata Hajime, is a very important one. It is the most important relationship that Nagito has in the entire game. It is very clear to anyone who has played the game that Nagito's feelings towards Hinata are likely romantic. It is no more clear cut than most other romances depicted in the world but his general behavior towards Hinata is continuously hinting at a romantic affection that Nagito has towards him. He says very peculiar things from time to time that is enough to get any eyebrows raising. Nagito's very last line in the game is extremely romantic towards Hinata and is very, very often depicted as an almost love confession because of the use of the term “ai shiteru” which apparently over in Japan is extremely intimate, something so intimate that even married couples are occasionally hesitant to use it. He winds up changing his mind last minute and saying something else but even Hinata has the mind to give pause on what Nagito had truly meant to say.

To him, Hinata is the ultimate hope. He expresses this oftentimes throughout the game. He is also seen being occasionally shy or nervous of Hinata in certain situations in which Hinata is attempting to "understand him" even though Hinata has already been exposed to who he truly is. Although Hinata still displays outward aggression and frustration towards Nagito, he does still attempt communication and Nagito typically reacts quite vividly to these attempts. After it is revealed that Hinata is not actually a Super High School Level anything and instead a student who had purchased his way into the school, Nagito shows extreme aggression towards him and bitterness that he is not the talented person that he thought him to be. Despite this, Nagito also shows conflict over how he feels about Hinata. Clearly he wants to hate him but apparently something is keeping him from doing so.

| “Praise me. Tell others what I've accomplished. Erect a bronze statue of me. Respect me. Please call me...the Ultimate Hope.” |

The end of Nagito Komaeda is very graphic but very important of his character. He is an incredibly smart boy and very reliant on his luck. His burning desire for hope is so strong that he was willing to go through such extremes in order to aid "Hope". After Nagito discovers that everyone was a member of the Ultimate Despair, he begins to construct a plan to "reveal the traitor". He sends his classmates on a wild goose chase throughout the island while he pieces everything together. When his body is finally discovered, he is shown with a spear sticking out of his gut, multiple stab wounds to his legs, and his hand stabbed. At first, it is an assumed murder- a very brutal and violent murder. The purpose of this was to lead everyone into thinking someone had killed Nagito.

And then finally they realize that it was impossible and that the evidence points to Nagito killing himself.

This is two deceptions at once.

Nagito had actually banked on his luck that it would be the traitor who killed him. He banked on it so much that he went through the trouble of setting up not one, but two false scenarios. The first being that someone killed him and the second one being that he had killed himself. When really, the actual murderer, unbeknownst to even themselves, was the real person who had killed Nagito- "technically".

He had set it up so that the room his corpse was in would catch fire when the door to it opened. Figuring out how his classmates might act, he filled one of the fire extinguishers with poison. He then depended on his luck that the traitor would be the one to throw the extinguisher with the poison in it and thus- killing him. Which meant that yeah, he was laying there with a spear hanging out of his gut and bleeding out waiting to be killed by poisonous gas in a flaming room. That is how far his dedication to this went.

As it turned out, his luck prevailed but not in the way he had hoped. Although there is no actual evidence to his true motive, everyone determined that maybe it was the entire classroom of the Ultimate Despair he had hoped to kill by misleading them as to who the actual killer was and therefor letting the traitor free- since the traitor was actually the only person of any "real hope". It probably sounds a bit sticky and complicated if you are canon blind and I'm sorry to say that but it is a great example of how far he is willing to go for the sake of hope. His death is his grand finale, after all.

Appearance: dat dangan hair

Abilities:

| “In my case, it always leads to such outcomes. However great the misfortune that I experience at first may be... The good luck that I will visit me later is grand enough to make up for all of it! That's the talent I possess... The reason I'm called "Super High School Level Lucky Student." |

SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL LUCK!

Although not a "super power" by any means, Nagito's streak of luck is incredible. He seems to have a natural cosmic sway over the universe in getting things exactly as he wants them. While at times his luck may seem "poor" to others, it is typically beneficial to Nagito in some shape or another. His luck is unfortunately balanced out by extremely severe bad luck. It's almost an exchange sort of deal he has to live with. Things like winning the lottery but then getting cancer. He is often times hesitant to do certain things because he isn't certain of how his luck will play out when it's something he doesn't feel too strongly about either way. He does have amazing faith in his luck when it suits him- for example he played a game of Russian Roulette but instead of having just one bullet in the barrel, he filled every single barrel except for one and proceeded to aim the gun at his head and somehow manage to get the one empty barrel in the whole gun. So in other words this kid is basically the personification of Lady Luck.

▸SAMPLES:
(One sample may be a link to a post/log thread of decent length that's occurred in the last six months from another game, or from a meme/musebox if the setting is the same as what the character will be apped from and the thread provides a good example of characterization — i.e. no AU settings or overly cracky memes. The other sample must be written to take place in Carvaka's setting.

For the Carvaka-specific sample, we're looking for a good example of character voice and how the character will adapt to the setting. We suggest avoiding "where am I?" or "where are my friends?" type samples, as these tend to be generic and often not fully representative of a character's normal behavior. You can still send in these kinds of samples if you wish to, but we advise applicants to consider whether or not they fulfill the requirements that we're looking for.)

First Person:
(Nagito didn't feel confident doing this kind of thing at first. He didn't like the idea of his face plastered on a computer screen where all kinds of talented, wonderful people could see his ugly, undeserving face and have to deal with his grating nonsense. Except this had to be done, didn't it? So alas, Nagito set up the camera and started the stream. He smiled.)

It's your choice whether or not you proceed to watch this.

(Way to state the obvious, Nagito. Gosh, he was so stupid. The passing thought of self-aimed annoyance passed and his smile didn't falter even once.)

But I strongly urge you to watch this. If you want to solve the murder, that is. If not then by all means turn this off and pretend like you never had to suffer a moment of looking at me.

(He pauses here, as if he was truly talking to someone and allowing them the time to walk away if they wanted to. He picks right back up after a full minute has passed.)

I'll bet that half of you were too stupid to realize that the light bulbs were broken. The only light in the room was coming in from the windows. Don't you get it?

(There's a sudden manic edge to his smile but he quickly calms himself back down. It was sometimes annoying being the only observant person on this island. He had faith in his peers though. He had faith in their bountiful, beautiful talent. They could do anything! He just...had to push them in the right direction.)

That's all I'll say for now. I expect so much out of you all. I believe you can do it. Remember, don't give up hope! It is all that we have left. One of you is the killer and for giving us that promise of hope, I have to thank you. You have given us such a precious gift, a beautiful opportunity...Ah...Another battle between hope and despair! I'm so excited I might...

(His smile grows stupid, his arms raised to wrap around his own body and Nagito shivers ever so slightly. Hope was such a beautiful thing. His peers were so beautiful in all that they were. He bit the corner of his lip before deciding that he might as well cut the feed now. He didn't want to give them too many clues, after all.)

Third Person:

(This is the Carvaka sample. I know it probably seems really boring and lengthy but considering Komaeda's canon history and the situation he was in prior to Carvaka- having him waking up in this new world felt pretty important to write about and a pretty good indicator to his character even if he doesn't talk in it. Hope it's okay!)

There is no finer despair than realizing that you have failed to get yourself killed. This is the first thing that Komaeda Nagito thinks when his eyes open and he realizes with a sickening dread that he is alive. It doesn't cross his mind that this is an afterlife he has been subjected to. Not with the gently beeping monitor at his bed side or the dull ache in the back of his hand where an IV is connected. He is a alive and has once again proven to be an unworthy failure. Where had he gone wrong? Had his luck finally run out on him? That poison should have killed him. If not, then the stab through the gut should have done the trick if only for bleeding out at some point. Any one of these things should have ended up with his heart beat flat lining up on that monitor. His eyes roll over to it and he has to glare a bit in disdain. He expects at any moment for one of the others to come in and start screaming at him. Except the more that he thinks about his current situation, the less it makes sense.

For one thing, he isn't locked up to the bed he's in. He's just ...there. After what he had done to everyone on the island, they surely would have handcuffed him to the bed or something. Even Hinata wouldn't have been able to convince the more paranoid ones against that. Then what? That meant the trial had never gone through because he hadn't actually died. And so the traitor wasn't revealed, right? Which meant that the traitor had not been saved from this hell. Nagito shut his eyes and tried to ignore the harsh swell of failure growing more and more inside of him.

But no, something wasn't right. He couldn't ignore his senses. Something was off. He opened his eyes again and this time he pushed himself past his own misery and focused on the room. It was plain and stark. There wasn't anything in it except for medical equipment. Outside there was a window that looked out onto the ocean. He looked down at the bed he was in and forced himself to think clearly. He looked a little different structurally than before he had died. Ah, yes, they were in a virtual reality...But wait.

That's when it clicked.

He must have woken up in his real body. It would explain the more defined structure of his legs just under the thin cotton blanket. He removed his hands from beneath the blanket and stared with an open look of wonder. One hand was perfectly normal but the other....

A slender hand sat atop where his old hand used to be. Tipping off each finger was a bright red acrylic nail. The hand was secured to his wrist by a tightly wrapped white bandage. The flesh around the edges of the nails was gray and Nagito wasn't sure what he felt as it began to click together in his head what he was looking at. He raised the hand to his face and stared hard at it. His memories felt distorted. Everything was all over the place. He knew what he had remembered and he knew what he had thought he had believed but where did that leave him now? Was this true reality?

He cleared his throat then and started to investigate for something, anything. Was there a call button? No. When he opened his mouth to call out, his voice made no noise. Of course. He had technically been in a coma for...for at least a year, right? Maybe more- maybe less? That was right. Why wasn't he in a tube though? Wasn't...? Or maybe....He rubbed his normal hand against the side of his face. It was too much even for him. This meant he'd have to physically get out of bed and figure things out on his own. He plucked the IV from the back of his hand with a grimace and slowly stepped out of bed. At once his legs collapsed under him and he grabbed the side of the bed, feeling his whole body sway with a weakness that could only come from laying for months and months.

Once he steadied himself on his feet, he walked towards the only door in the room. His hospital gown was sterile still -or it smelled it anyway. He half expected to find the door of the room locked but when he turned the knob, it swung open with ease and then that's when his mind truly felt split down the center.

The door opened out into a city unlike any he had ever seen before. No. That wasn't quite right. He somehow recognized it. Hope's Peak should have been...somewhere....But it was rotten away. That was somehow familiar to him too, after everything, but at the same time, it was different. His memories from before the island and all those years he was forced to forget and then what he had retrieved from the file became a cluster in his mind as he tried desperately to piece together what made sense and what didn't. There was a destroyed Monokuma statue sitting just a few feet away. The ocean he had seen before wasn't anywhere- he didn't think about that right then. Yet...

He stared around dimly, wondering faintly what was happening to him now. Was this another stimulation? Was this another one of Junko's trials? Another test to see whether or not he was worth saving? At that, Nagito had to laugh weakly, the sound wheezing out of his throat. Whatever it was, he was back in his real body. He could recognize that much. What else was there to do now but to investigate? It was what he was good at and he was curious despite being so exhausted. This city was off and he wanted to know why, was excited to know why. Maybe he hadn't failed as badly as he had thought. He begins to walk, unsteady on feet so unused, and Nagito doesn't think about it so much as move on reflex but the rotting hand with the fake nails- the pinky gives the smallest twitch.

No. He isn't home at all.

But maybe that isn't such a bad thing. After all, he's fairly sure he wasn't meant to wake up after he died.

Maybe this was his ultimate second chance to bring hope to a world. Even if it wasn't to a world that he came from. All he had to do now was find someone.