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Nov. 20th, 2012 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
viciouscyclesCharacter Name: Yasutomo Arakita
Canon: Yowamushi Pedal
Canon Point: Chapter 177 of the manga, immediately after [spoilers]
Background/History: http://yowamushipedal.wikia.com/wiki/Arakita_Yasutomo
Personality:
Before he got his Shit Straightened Out, Yasutomo Arakita was a foul-mouthed, rude, socially inept and aimless delinquent who alienated everyone around him due to his massive self-worth issues. But now, after a transformation brought on by friendship and inspiring speeches about looking forward, Yasutomo Arakita is now a foul-mouthed, rude, socially inept ex-delinquent who still alienates anyone who doesn’t read between the lines of all the abrasive things he says.
…But at least he rides bikes now.
Alright, there’s a little more to it.
It’s easy to look at Arakita and think he’s nothing more than the tough-guy image he puts up as a front. On a very basic surface level, this is somewhat true. Arakita is rude, foul-mouthed and generally unpleasant to be around if one does not know him on a deeper level because of his confrontational personality. Always peppering his speech with various expletives, Arakita doesn’t respect common social graces in the slightest and is often the one to outright say the things left unsaid with little tact behind them. He’s as likely to greet someone with a “hello” as he is with “your riding/face/headband/general existence sucks, you moron”. Likewise, he knows he’s abrasive and is very willing to cultivate that image when he needs to- as evidenced by all the times when a racing opponent pushes one of his many, many buttons and gotten a snarling Arakita right in their face as a result. If he doesn’t respect someone (and this is pretty much everyone besides a choice few), he’ll make that abundantly clear through a combination of rude speech, aggressively shrugging off any attempts at conversation and most likely insulting something about said person’s appearance or general personality. He complains constantly, about almost everything, and at anyone without reservations. As an athlete, it makes sense that his riding style falls right in line with this. He’s incredibly reckless as he rides, curses out the competition, makes it very clear that in a road race there isn’t any room for chitchat or friendliness, and makes it a point to state that he’s not just going to reach the goal, he’s going to eat it. To earn a spot on the racing team of the best cycling club on the country means you have to be competitive, and when the time calls for it Arakita is competitive. He’ll throw himself wholeheartedly and aggressively into racing and stop at nothing to get his team to the goal, competition, spectators or literally anything else be dammed.
But Arakita does care, and that’s where the “nothing but tough” image begins to fall apart. Underneath the cursing, yelling, scowling and insults, Arakita cares about his teammates and those whom he has come to respect. He’ll complain and moan about it as much as he would if he was asked to do the same for a stranger, but when people he cares about need help he will help them. Whether it’s riding alongside them as a teammate, pulling them through a race in sweltering heat, following their orders for the good of the rest of the team or “encouraging” (read: yelling at them) to not quit the team, Arakita has a way of being there for the people that matter to him even if he’s going to gripe about it all the way. Underneath it all is a prevailing sense of loyalty- In fact, even if his life’s philosophy is about moving forward as a means to personal growth, it’s much more accurate to call Arakita selfless than it is to call him selfish. While biking, training, races and winning are all components of what drive him forward, Arakita does all of these things for the team- more exactly, he plays a supportive role by bringing the ace to the finish line and takes great pride in doing so. While it was more obvious before he found a purpose in life, Arakita has a generally low opinion of himself. He knows he’s abrasive and unpleasant to be around, and knows he isn’t good at general positive commination, and thus he puts a lot of his self-worth on what he can do for the team/his captain or to prove of his own abilities. He knows how hard he’s worked and the results doing so has brought, but he is by no means arrogant or even particularly prideful. The reason he threw himself into cycling wholeheartedly, besides identifying with the philosophy of looking forward and ahead in life, was to see just how far he could go with it and to prove that he exists as something other than a good-for-nothing delinquent, and he’s satisfied with proving that alone.
So it makes sense that Arakita is by no means stupid or completely socially unaware. In a way, he’s a paradox when it comes to people: as absolutely terrible as Arakita is at communicating his own emotions towards others in a positive verbal manner, he’s skilled at reading other people’s unsaid intentions and feelings behind their actions. As one would expect with someone said to have the senses of a wild animal, he’s just good at picking things up. He can easily understand the underlying meanings of his captain Fukutomi’s words when the guy gives obscure or unclear orders, and can read between the lines of whatever’s thrown at him. As someone who has done a surprising amount of self-reflection, he can also see the negative parts of himself in other people and can empathize with how they feel, having gone through a similar situation. You can’t pull the wool over his eyes with tricks or attempts at deflection when it comes to these feelings- Arakita can see past all the ploys to disguise pain, as evidenced by his complete understanding of Machimya’s inability to let go and move on from his anger and frustration towards the world during their race. He may not express it tactfully or with any sort of niceness, but once they’ve proven to have gone through similar hardships he does have the ability empathize with people. He may be aggressive, tactless and abrasive, but Arakita is not cruel or completely unsympathetic.
If there’s anything Arakita’s gained from his bumpy road in life, aside from friends and an actual purpose in life besides running away from a supposedly unchangable reality, it’s perspective. When there’s a goal ahead of him, be it a finish line or a life purpose, he’s going to reach it and not get knocked down by anything else that happens to him along the way. Arakita was transformed from an aimless delinquent by the words “you have to look ahead to move yourself forward” and he makes damn well sure to live by them as a result. He refuses to let himself be bogged down or tied by his past or regrets, instead striving to move forward with “pure” feelings toward fulfilment, or as the case may be in biking races, leading his team towards victory. As a result, he hates being praised with empty or shallow words such as “do your best” or “you can do it”. To him, these words are a shallow reflection of how hard he works for the things he wants, and a gross show of ignorance towards the fact that his victories are his own and not the result of anyone else’s work. His life is his own, and he made it that way.
He’s still a work in progress, but he’s come a very long way from where he was.
Abilities/Powers: Besides being able to hit a car window at full biking speed with his shoulder and not shattering it to pieces, as well as being able to “smell” abstract concepts (such as people’s auras and the finish line) as if they were actual scents, he’s a normal human.
Items/Weapons:
His road racing bicycle, Hakone Academy racing uniform (which he is currently wearing), and a biking helmet.
Sample Entry:
[There’s no warning before the sound of Arakita’s lovely, scratchy and bark-like voice rings out over the network. Likewise, he doesn’t bother with an introduction or any pleasantries. Why even bother, when he doesn’t even know any of these people?]
If anyone has food that doesn’t smell like fucking mold or shit, I’ll trade you something for it.
[As to what that will be, well. He’ll figure that out as soon as someone proves they have the goods.
Needless to say, Arakita isn’t great at phone communication, much less contacting an entire group of strangers because he needs help. He’s not arrogant enough to think that he could live in this city for any amount of time while talking to absolutely nobody, but even he knows that sending out an SOS within the first week is pretty goddamn pathetic. In his eyes, at least.
But he’s hungry enough, and even he knows that he’s not going to be able to move forward when his stomach’s growling louder than his harsh words can be spoken.
He considers cutting his losses and ending the call there, and his consideration is signaled by a pointed pause and the sound of him scratching his hair as he thinks. What else was there to say, anyway?]
Who the hell kidnaps an entire fucking city of people and leaves them to starve? Christ. They’re asking for someone to come find them and kick their ass.
[…A complaint. Nailed it, Yasutomo.]
Sample Entry Two:
The first thing Yasutomo Arakita did, after getting some explanation as to where the fresh hell he had ended up, was exit that prison cell that everyone was calling an apartment and walk straight out into the glaring sunlight of the ruined city that everyone told him he should accept as “home” for the time being, until the same trickery used to pull him out of a race and land him here decided to arbitrarily send him right back.
Fat fucking chance.
It stunk- the dust, the air, the people, the entire goddamn city stunk with a blackness that far surpassed the stench of any annoying competitor or shit-for-brains that he’d ever met. He almost reflexively pinched his nose, but after realizing how stupid that would look while walking, he shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched over slightly, and made an effort to ignore it as he walked forward.
By the time he had taken no more than ten steps into the stench of Haven West, Arakita was making a plan. He never took any of the crappy movies that his teammate Izumida called “horror films” seriously, but there was something to be said for considering basic survival skills in a situation that, if he was completely honest, resembled a zombie flick. He didn’t see any zombies (and after hearing the explanation of this place, he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there were zombies here), but he wasn’t expecting to find a fully stocked convenience store around the corner either.
So, his plan was simple now by necessity- find food, find water, find something to protect himself with, find the exit and then promptly get the hell out. He’d sort out the details along the way.
As it turns out, the devil is in the details, and after two hours in Haven West he only had two cans of beans and a torn package of pasta to his name, along with a stomach that was already complaining and sore muscles that realized that they had just gotten off a race and needed rest. He was in bad shape, he knew that, but like hell if he was going to just lie down and let himself succumb to it.
“This is fucking exhausting,” he complained to no one, after searching through yet another pile of rubble and yielding nothing. He could almost hear Toudou complaining about the dirt all over his hands and arms, Shinkai’s stomach growling louder than his own and Fukutomi urging them all to “stay strong”, or whatever variation of that phrase he would say after the fucking apocalypse.
For a fleeting moment, Arakita wondered if they were alright. He’d already scoured through his phone looking for their names in the contact list, as was suggested by another resident and thanked by a grunt from Arakita, and found none of them. If they weren’t here, then they were fine, right?
It wasn’t worth worrying about when he was going to get out of here as soon as possible anyway.
Canon: Yowamushi Pedal
Canon Point: Chapter 177 of the manga, immediately after [spoilers]
Background/History: http://yowamushipedal.wikia.com/wiki/Arakita_Yasutomo
Personality:
Before he got his Shit Straightened Out, Yasutomo Arakita was a foul-mouthed, rude, socially inept and aimless delinquent who alienated everyone around him due to his massive self-worth issues. But now, after a transformation brought on by friendship and inspiring speeches about looking forward, Yasutomo Arakita is now a foul-mouthed, rude, socially inept ex-delinquent who still alienates anyone who doesn’t read between the lines of all the abrasive things he says.
…But at least he rides bikes now.
Alright, there’s a little more to it.
It’s easy to look at Arakita and think he’s nothing more than the tough-guy image he puts up as a front. On a very basic surface level, this is somewhat true. Arakita is rude, foul-mouthed and generally unpleasant to be around if one does not know him on a deeper level because of his confrontational personality. Always peppering his speech with various expletives, Arakita doesn’t respect common social graces in the slightest and is often the one to outright say the things left unsaid with little tact behind them. He’s as likely to greet someone with a “hello” as he is with “your riding/face/headband/general existence sucks, you moron”. Likewise, he knows he’s abrasive and is very willing to cultivate that image when he needs to- as evidenced by all the times when a racing opponent pushes one of his many, many buttons and gotten a snarling Arakita right in their face as a result. If he doesn’t respect someone (and this is pretty much everyone besides a choice few), he’ll make that abundantly clear through a combination of rude speech, aggressively shrugging off any attempts at conversation and most likely insulting something about said person’s appearance or general personality. He complains constantly, about almost everything, and at anyone without reservations. As an athlete, it makes sense that his riding style falls right in line with this. He’s incredibly reckless as he rides, curses out the competition, makes it very clear that in a road race there isn’t any room for chitchat or friendliness, and makes it a point to state that he’s not just going to reach the goal, he’s going to eat it. To earn a spot on the racing team of the best cycling club on the country means you have to be competitive, and when the time calls for it Arakita is competitive. He’ll throw himself wholeheartedly and aggressively into racing and stop at nothing to get his team to the goal, competition, spectators or literally anything else be dammed.
But Arakita does care, and that’s where the “nothing but tough” image begins to fall apart. Underneath the cursing, yelling, scowling and insults, Arakita cares about his teammates and those whom he has come to respect. He’ll complain and moan about it as much as he would if he was asked to do the same for a stranger, but when people he cares about need help he will help them. Whether it’s riding alongside them as a teammate, pulling them through a race in sweltering heat, following their orders for the good of the rest of the team or “encouraging” (read: yelling at them) to not quit the team, Arakita has a way of being there for the people that matter to him even if he’s going to gripe about it all the way. Underneath it all is a prevailing sense of loyalty- In fact, even if his life’s philosophy is about moving forward as a means to personal growth, it’s much more accurate to call Arakita selfless than it is to call him selfish. While biking, training, races and winning are all components of what drive him forward, Arakita does all of these things for the team- more exactly, he plays a supportive role by bringing the ace to the finish line and takes great pride in doing so. While it was more obvious before he found a purpose in life, Arakita has a generally low opinion of himself. He knows he’s abrasive and unpleasant to be around, and knows he isn’t good at general positive commination, and thus he puts a lot of his self-worth on what he can do for the team/his captain or to prove of his own abilities. He knows how hard he’s worked and the results doing so has brought, but he is by no means arrogant or even particularly prideful. The reason he threw himself into cycling wholeheartedly, besides identifying with the philosophy of looking forward and ahead in life, was to see just how far he could go with it and to prove that he exists as something other than a good-for-nothing delinquent, and he’s satisfied with proving that alone.
So it makes sense that Arakita is by no means stupid or completely socially unaware. In a way, he’s a paradox when it comes to people: as absolutely terrible as Arakita is at communicating his own emotions towards others in a positive verbal manner, he’s skilled at reading other people’s unsaid intentions and feelings behind their actions. As one would expect with someone said to have the senses of a wild animal, he’s just good at picking things up. He can easily understand the underlying meanings of his captain Fukutomi’s words when the guy gives obscure or unclear orders, and can read between the lines of whatever’s thrown at him. As someone who has done a surprising amount of self-reflection, he can also see the negative parts of himself in other people and can empathize with how they feel, having gone through a similar situation. You can’t pull the wool over his eyes with tricks or attempts at deflection when it comes to these feelings- Arakita can see past all the ploys to disguise pain, as evidenced by his complete understanding of Machimya’s inability to let go and move on from his anger and frustration towards the world during their race. He may not express it tactfully or with any sort of niceness, but once they’ve proven to have gone through similar hardships he does have the ability empathize with people. He may be aggressive, tactless and abrasive, but Arakita is not cruel or completely unsympathetic.
If there’s anything Arakita’s gained from his bumpy road in life, aside from friends and an actual purpose in life besides running away from a supposedly unchangable reality, it’s perspective. When there’s a goal ahead of him, be it a finish line or a life purpose, he’s going to reach it and not get knocked down by anything else that happens to him along the way. Arakita was transformed from an aimless delinquent by the words “you have to look ahead to move yourself forward” and he makes damn well sure to live by them as a result. He refuses to let himself be bogged down or tied by his past or regrets, instead striving to move forward with “pure” feelings toward fulfilment, or as the case may be in biking races, leading his team towards victory. As a result, he hates being praised with empty or shallow words such as “do your best” or “you can do it”. To him, these words are a shallow reflection of how hard he works for the things he wants, and a gross show of ignorance towards the fact that his victories are his own and not the result of anyone else’s work. His life is his own, and he made it that way.
He’s still a work in progress, but he’s come a very long way from where he was.
Abilities/Powers: Besides being able to hit a car window at full biking speed with his shoulder and not shattering it to pieces, as well as being able to “smell” abstract concepts (such as people’s auras and the finish line) as if they were actual scents, he’s a normal human.
Items/Weapons:
His road racing bicycle, Hakone Academy racing uniform (which he is currently wearing), and a biking helmet.
Sample Entry:
[There’s no warning before the sound of Arakita’s lovely, scratchy and bark-like voice rings out over the network. Likewise, he doesn’t bother with an introduction or any pleasantries. Why even bother, when he doesn’t even know any of these people?]
If anyone has food that doesn’t smell like fucking mold or shit, I’ll trade you something for it.
[As to what that will be, well. He’ll figure that out as soon as someone proves they have the goods.
Needless to say, Arakita isn’t great at phone communication, much less contacting an entire group of strangers because he needs help. He’s not arrogant enough to think that he could live in this city for any amount of time while talking to absolutely nobody, but even he knows that sending out an SOS within the first week is pretty goddamn pathetic. In his eyes, at least.
But he’s hungry enough, and even he knows that he’s not going to be able to move forward when his stomach’s growling louder than his harsh words can be spoken.
He considers cutting his losses and ending the call there, and his consideration is signaled by a pointed pause and the sound of him scratching his hair as he thinks. What else was there to say, anyway?]
Who the hell kidnaps an entire fucking city of people and leaves them to starve? Christ. They’re asking for someone to come find them and kick their ass.
[…A complaint. Nailed it, Yasutomo.]
Sample Entry Two:
The first thing Yasutomo Arakita did, after getting some explanation as to where the fresh hell he had ended up, was exit that prison cell that everyone was calling an apartment and walk straight out into the glaring sunlight of the ruined city that everyone told him he should accept as “home” for the time being, until the same trickery used to pull him out of a race and land him here decided to arbitrarily send him right back.
Fat fucking chance.
It stunk- the dust, the air, the people, the entire goddamn city stunk with a blackness that far surpassed the stench of any annoying competitor or shit-for-brains that he’d ever met. He almost reflexively pinched his nose, but after realizing how stupid that would look while walking, he shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched over slightly, and made an effort to ignore it as he walked forward.
By the time he had taken no more than ten steps into the stench of Haven West, Arakita was making a plan. He never took any of the crappy movies that his teammate Izumida called “horror films” seriously, but there was something to be said for considering basic survival skills in a situation that, if he was completely honest, resembled a zombie flick. He didn’t see any zombies (and after hearing the explanation of this place, he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there were zombies here), but he wasn’t expecting to find a fully stocked convenience store around the corner either.
So, his plan was simple now by necessity- find food, find water, find something to protect himself with, find the exit and then promptly get the hell out. He’d sort out the details along the way.
As it turns out, the devil is in the details, and after two hours in Haven West he only had two cans of beans and a torn package of pasta to his name, along with a stomach that was already complaining and sore muscles that realized that they had just gotten off a race and needed rest. He was in bad shape, he knew that, but like hell if he was going to just lie down and let himself succumb to it.
“This is fucking exhausting,” he complained to no one, after searching through yet another pile of rubble and yielding nothing. He could almost hear Toudou complaining about the dirt all over his hands and arms, Shinkai’s stomach growling louder than his own and Fukutomi urging them all to “stay strong”, or whatever variation of that phrase he would say after the fucking apocalypse.
For a fleeting moment, Arakita wondered if they were alright. He’d already scoured through his phone looking for their names in the contact list, as was suggested by another resident and thanked by a grunt from Arakita, and found none of them. If they weren’t here, then they were fine, right?
It wasn’t worth worrying about when he was going to get out of here as soon as possible anyway.