Post by ataru on Oct 14, 2010 7:11:11 GMT -6
::Tanaka Ataru::
Type: Original
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Crushes: His work
Face Claim: Goro Natsume - Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora
Description:
Ataru is a Japanese adult male of average height and build. His one charm point would probably be his face, which appears very young and arresting despite the mediocrity of the no-particular-style ordinary black hair framing it. His eyes are full of intelligence bordering on wisdom and are one of the more obvious indications of his age. Meeting his gaze one can feel the slight pressure of years. Upon closer inspection there are light wrinkles on his brow and around his eyes, the kind that develop when one spends alot of time furrowing their brow and focusing perhaps a little too hard.[/size]
His face may be handsome, but his smile is a little pathetic. It has a broken, half-mast quality that often makes the person receiving the smile wish that he would drop it back to a more neutral expression. It would almost appear sardonic if his eyes were backing the impression at all. Instead it merely looks tired, worn out, though he doesn't appear to broadcast this weariness from any other place on his form so it could be assumed that maybe he just don't know how to smile correctly.
There is no particular level of neatness or lack thereof to call attention to his clothing. When seen at work he wears his long white labcoat, when not at work he lounges around in button-up shirts and jeans. The only thing that might draw the eye is a modest wedding band around the appropriate finger.
Personality:
Ataru is dedicated to saving lives and relieving pain. More to the point Ataru fights hurts. This differs slightly from curing -people-, as the focus is different. Ataru is a seeker and a destroyer, not a tender. Now he does tend to people, but that is merely a means to an end, to him. He does not see the patient as a person, but rather as a list of symptoms that must be overcome. This list turns into a kind of strategic game of medicine and activities that he employs to defeat the enemy that is the sickness. Everything is done logically, precisely. The fact that he is curing a person comes as secondary, and he takes much more joy in the conquest of the pain than the joy of the alleviated patient.[/size]
Thus it is in all aspects of Ataru's life: analyze the variables, identify the problem, create a plan to overcome the problem, execute plan, overcome. If something fails along the way he will step back and calmly review his own actions until he realizes where the mistake is. Sometimes it may take a while, but he has a good record of realizing his own mistakes once the problem is brought to his attention... though sometimes with real life situations it takes him a great deal of time to notice there is a problem in the first place. Does it hurt? Are you sick? Is something wrong? If these questions can't be positively answered with assurance then he cannot deal with the situation as a problem. If it's not -wrong- wrong, like diagnosably wrong, then it's -not- wrong. At least not yet. And thus he shunts away the stresses and situations of life as secondary to the more momentary quests of solving 'bigger' problems.
He has little concept of how to deal with people socially, having only really ever felt strong emotions for his wife. When she was alive he may as well have hid behind her back like a frightened child at social gatherings. He knew how to solve conversations; all you had to do was answer the questions that were asked of you. But starting a conversation, or knowing what answers were right or wrong... they don't teach that in cram school. Now, without his wife he is even more useless outside of the medical room. Cook food, sleep at appropriate hours, make sure his children are still well-adjusted and active (his definition of 'well adjusted' being 'getting good grades, not making trouble, not sick'), wake up, go to work. Outside of work it's hard to even notice his presence as he moves through his routine as if he's the only one in a small world between his house and the school where he works as the nurse.
He is a genius when it comes to medical science, just waiting for his chance to move up in the medical world and get a real big job. However, when it comes to all other aspects in life it's like he is an alien observer who learned of Earth life through television: he understands and can mimic the actions, but cannot manage to convey meaning or emotion in his interactions. Is he himself numb to emotion? More like he seals it away as being to hard to control logically. When it comes up he shies away, pushing it back. Don't let it cloud your thoughts; calm down, think it over calmly, and give the best response.
That's all there is to it.
History:
Ataru was one of 'those' Japanese kids. They say the difference between success in Japan is whether you choose to sleep 4 or 5 hours a night. Ataru was the kid who slept 4. School, club, tutor, homework, asleep at 3:00AM to wake at 7:00. Top of his grade school, went to the best middle and high schools. He made friends with the other top students because they had the same goals as him. They would quiz each other on facts from their cram manuals in preparation for each upcoming quiz, obsessed in the same way the other kids would be about Pokemon cards or anime. Though they called each other friend, that was the extent of their interaction: preparing for the future.[/size]
That was the theme of his entire childhood and growing years; preparing for the future. His father was a normal businessman and his mother a homemaker. At one point his father had aimed for a top university but had failed to get in. Though it was small, the wish still stood in his heart for their family to receive the honor of having a student attend and graduate from a top school. It was easy, then, to gently shift their son's life toward that goal. Ataru didn't mind; after grade school studying was all he really knew how to do.
After he entered high school they sat down with his 'future career' worksheet from school and had a family council meeting. 'What is the most prestigious and rewarding career Ataru can enter?' was the question. They did some research and finally decided that he should be a doctor. Lots of upward mobility in that profession, lots of prestige. It was very handsome to have a doctor in the family registrar.
'Curing people is just like a test, right? You learn the material and then they bring in the patient and it's like a quiz. Just do what you memorized and that's all there is to it," his father had said, patting Ataru on the back as he wrote 'Doctor' into the #1 slot on the career worksheet.
Ataru didn't have a girlfriend in high school. Despite his rather handsome face girls were put off by his cold demeanor. They never saw him... express... -anything-. He didn't emote. He sucked in emotions directed at him like a black hole with no reaction, or at least no reaction that registered on anyone else's scale of normal human output. He would half-smile bemusedly at jokes and humbly turn down compliments. He would tell people to 'do their best' when it was appropriate and he sang the school anthem at assemblies with no particular enthusiasm.
And so he continued on until college. He got into the top medical school, of course, and was at the top of his class there as well. He did as his father said and treated every sickness as a pop quiz. As long as he just memorized the necessary actions and learned how to do them correctly it was impossible to fail. When he did slip up it was simple enough to think back over it and correct his actions for future repetitions.
Then he fell in love. Hard. It was the most powerful and strange emotion he had ever had before. He was still in his starting years when it happened. She was one of the teacher's aides, older than him by a good dozen years, but she was beautiful with long silvery hair and a smile both bright and mature. That was what he found he loved most in her; her maturity. When she returned his feelings and took him as a lover he never felt like an equal or partner. Instead he felt like a priest serving his guardian angel or goddess. As much as she laughed off such ideas and tried to get him to lighten up he never came to think of himself as truly standing by her side. To him their love was an unfair trade. That he loved her was logical, a matter of destiny, and undeniable outcome. That she loved him back was a divine gift, an undeserved favor from on high.
He would do anything for her. She told him about her hometown out in the sticks and how there was a small clinic there her family used to run. She talked about how she wished the two of them could go and staff it. He graduated as fast as possible, not worrying about postgrad, and followed her to her hometown where he set up shop. She was happy treating her old family friends, surrounded by her kin. He was happy that she was happy, completely subservient in his own needs. He wanted only to continue protecting her smile by doing what she asked of him.
After that she wanted children. He gave her that as well, despite his own doubts. He knew nothing of children, being an only child and having missed his own childhood completely. However she laughed off his fears and tousled his hair and told him that it would be alright if they worked together. 'With your brains and my beauty we can do anything!' she would say jokingly, lovingly. As always he wondered what she could possibly see in a social inept such as himself, but he accepted her love and complied with her requests.
She died giving birth to the twins. Her twins. They were beautiful and vibrant like she had been beautiful and vibrant. He went to her family and knelt with his forehead to the floor before them, begging them through tears to help him care for 'her children'. It was the first time he said it, and it was always so afterward. They weren't his, he couldn't have created children, especially not with a celestial being such as their mother had been. There was no way he could list himself as the parent of such kids, not without her there to back him up and give him support. So they were her children. As he had dedicated himself to her he dedicated himself to them...
Or so he told himself as he worked hard, saving up money so they could go to high class schools. They were forced to commute long distances and attend classes far from the local children who they played with as toddlers, but they didn't mind as much as young children. After that he decided they should move to a larger city where they would have more options for secondary education. Not to mention... and he certainly wouldn't mention it... but he was becoming stressed trying to deal with the people in the area. They had all known his wife, of course, and many of them were her relatives. They came by frequently to take care of the kids or him, always speaking condolences even years later. He didn't know how to react to them. They took this as shock at the loss and would go more and more out of their way to help him and be with him, causing him to withdraw even further.
He wanted to go back. If he couldn't be with the only good thing in his life he wanted to go back to the old world; the professional world. He started working on his doctorate by correspondence and started feeling around for a place to work in a larger city. Her relatives were saddened by his decision to leave, but they understood how hard it could be to live each day in the building where she breathed her last. However, for the children's sake, they convinced him to remain there at least while the kids were growing up. That way they would have people to look after them after school while they were still in their younger years. Once they got to high school age, he reasoned, they would be able to look after themselves even if he was working late. Getting them to high school age became his goal, and he went through the motions of parenting with the help of Her family.
Then the day came and he packed up everything and left, hardly giving them time to say good-bye to their mother's relatives, who they had much tighter bonds with than those they had with him. He took them away from their friends as well, and plopped them into a large city far from their first home in a new high school. He tried to reassure them by telling them to swing by his office any time they needed help, as he'd be working in their high school as the nurse until the new hospital opened and he could finish his higher degree. He gave them a half smile and wished them a good school year.
There, done. Mission complete. He had raised her children. Now they didn't need a parent anymore. They could take care of themselves. He could sink into his work as into a bog, let it flow over him until everything else vanished and he stopped feeling the emotions she had awakened in him. He could be the taker of tests, the precise medical machinery that cured ills. He could become numb, and finally, finally, finally stop suffering.
Controller's Information
Nickname: Ataru
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Seen the Anime/Played the Game?: Yeppers
How Did You Find Us?: I'm Sunohara. I live here.
Sample RP:
"It's a conspiracy, Tomoya! It's obviously a conspiracy!" Youhei skipped any formalities or 'good-morning's' and immediately went in for the crazy bit. Grabbing Tomoya by the shoulders he ranted:
"Yesterday! I was planning on asking this girl out, and it was all going to go just fine! But then at lunch all the bread got bought out all quick-like so there was only garlic curry bread left! How can I ask a girl out with garlic-curry breath? And you know what? You know what else?"
At this he began shaking Tomoya back and forth, full of righteous indignation.
"The lunch lady was smirking when she served it to me! I knew there was something fishy going on! That lunch lady has it in for me just because I never flirt with her! She wants to make sure I don't flirt with any other girls! I think she might be obsessed with me! She might have a shrine to me in her house somewhere! You can tell by the way she looks at me sometimes! And yesterday was just more proof!"
Finally he releases Tomoya's shoulders but hardly pauses for a breath as he starts to pace, looking as deep-in-thought as is possible, for him.
"There's gotta be a way to break it to her gently that she's not my type... I'm worried since ladies that are obsessive like that tend to kill the guy if he tries to brush her off... happens all the time in the movies..."
Coming to this realization Sunohara pulled an 'oh-noes!' face with both hands on his cheeks.
"What'm I gonna do Tomoya? She's gonna kill me!"