Ryou Bakura | YGO

Folkmore App

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 09:09:14 GMT

★ Character Information ★

Character Name: Ryou Bakura
Character Age: 18
Character Species: Human
Current Health: Reasonably healthy, if a bit scrawny.
Outfit: This outfit from the end of DSOD!

Character Canon: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Link to History: This page is mostly good, but it doesn't detail the events of Dark Side of Dimensions very well, so bullet points version:
-Ryou is about to graduate from Domino High with his friends when DSOD takes place; he no longer has the Millennium Ring by this point.
-Midway through the movie he and his friend Jounouchi are confronted by Aigami, who uses his Quantum Cube powers to send Jounouchi to another dimension and force Ryou to remember the true circumstances of how he got the Ring that he had blanked out (TLDR Ryou's father tried to claim the Ring and was rejected, a then ten year old Ryou grabbed it and was accepted as the new host for the Ring Spirit, Spirit possessed Ryou and killed a man named Shadi who was taking care of Aigami)
-Ryou (who is extremely rattled at finding out what actually happened) tries to explain he was being possessed, then apologizes to Aigami for Shadi's murder despite how he was possessed and not at fault for it, only for a Ring controlled Mani to show up and try to kill Ryou/send Ryou to another dimension.
-Ryou then spends a while in the other dimension (where he very well could have been completely vanished from reality had he stayed too long) before finally being brought back after Aigami lost a Duel to Yugi...only for Aigami to end up being controlled by the Ring and almost destroy the world.
-Ryou was fine in the end though and graduated, then saw his friend Anzu off at the airport.
Canon Point: Post Dark Side of Dimensions/after seeing Anzu off at the airport.
Canon Iteration: Original canon
Canon Iteration Explanation: I follow the manga+DSOD version of the canon over the anime version, which while telling roughly the same story does have some differences. (The anime adaptation added several anime only arcs and put even more emphasis on the card game, Ryou in particular had a lot of his characterization and appearances cut in favor of the Ring Spirit getting more appearances in the anime.)

★ Folkmore Roles & Attributes ★

Skills: -Diorama building
-Tabletop gaming (he especially loves being the game master)
-Ryou also claims to be good at cooking; since he lives alone I'm willing to bet this is true.
Canon Abilities: N/A, Ryou is a normal guy.
Role: Myth
Role Qualities/Attributes: Ramlike horns, a fluffy white (undocked) sheep tail, fangs, increased luck and innovation skills, ability to see in the dark.

These traits are meant to invoke, on first glance at the tail and horns, the image of a sheep: gentle and harmless. Perhaps you could mistake him for a Familiar with those traits. Perhaps they create the image of a sacrificial lamb, in combo with his personality and role as the Ring Spirit's 'destined host'.

The fangs are less obvious on first glance, and carry the image of a wolf in sheep's clothing; while Ryou himself is no wolf, the spirit who possessed him sure created that image. And of course, the fangs are also a hint towards Ryou's true potential to better stand up for himself and 'bite back' instead of sacrificing for others all the time.

Finally, the ram horns, unbeknownst to even Ryou since he never saw the demon himself, invoke the image of the evil demon Zorc Necrophades. After all, a fragment of Zorc formed part of the ancient Ring Spirit who controlled Ryou, so it's natural that one of his Myth traits references him.

(Also I gave him nightvision as a reference to DnD style Darkvision-)

Role Reasoning: Ryou's personality practically screams 'Legend'. He's kind, gentle, would literally die for his friends. And yet, he's a Myth. Why?

The answer is, of course, that he's more complicated than just a pure sweetheart. Ryou acted as the host to the evil spirit of the Millennium Ring, and even if he meant well, Ryou still enabled the Spirit's actions simply by keeping and wearing the Ring, allowing his repeated possessions and the Spirit's crimes to occur.

In addition, as much as Ryou wants people to recognize that he's good, the Ring Spirit has caused more than a few people to either view him as a troublemaker/evil or blame him for the Spirit's actions. His reputation has taken a beating from all the Spirit did, and now Ryou has to deal with the fallout of people who blame him because they have no clue he was possessed.

Ryou also has a tendency to try to prove he's good by sacrificing his own desires to support others, especially when blamed for the Spirit's actions. Being a Legend would only cause him to stagnate rather than reach his potential by learning it's okay to push back and defend himself more often.

★ Personality ★

Option 2. Choose FOUR-FIVE of the following questions to answer and expand upon. You may choose a fifth question if you feel it is integral to your character's personality. Each answer has a 100-300 word requirement.

OPTION 2 QUESTIONS (PICK 4-5) 100-300 WORD LIMIT EACH:

What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them? ~~Which one?~~ The most traumatic experience he endured, perhaps, was when he first got the Ring. The trip to Egypt came not long after the deaths of his mother and younger sister, and when Ryou's father tried to claim the Ring, it violently rejected him, almost killing him in the process. Ryou saw this and would have been desperate to not lose his father too, leading him to grab the Ring in a misguided attempt to help him.

This in turn led to Ryou being claimed as the unfortunate host to the vengeful Ring Spirit, who would go on to trap the souls of Ryou's friends in tabletop gaming miniatures, leaving their bodies comatose and Ryou with all the blame (with Ryou unable to explain why his friends kept going comatose for years), physically harm Ryou, and use his diorama building skills to set up the board for the final Shadow RPG. Needless to say, Ryou getting the Ring was the root of most of his other traumas.

On top of the above, the sheer trauma of watching his father almost die and being violently possessed for the first time at age ten caused Ryou to blank out how he got the Ring for years and fill it in with a story about his father giving it to him as a gift. This false story lasted until he was eighteen, when Aigami forced Ryou to remember the truth as part of his revenge quest.

What experience challenged your character's core beliefs? How did they handle this or change from it? Ryou spent most of his life being traumatized in various ways; from his mother and sister dying in a car accident, to being repeatedly possessed by an ancient vengeful spirit, to watching his friends go comatose and having to transfer schools repeatedly because of it, to being sent to an alternate dimension that could have erased him from reality altogether. It was a lot for one unfortunate eighteen year old to go through, and a lot of people would have just given up or become bitter if they went through all of what Ryou went through.

And yet, Ryou managed to maintain his gentle, kind nature through it all and pushed through. Ryou never once completely gave up, even at his lowest, when he was desperately lonely, confused on why his friends kept going comatose during his tabletop games, and terrified that being around others would only get them hurt. He kept going, pushing to protect his newest group of friends whenever possible and never giving in to despair at his horrific circumstances. In this way, Ryou proved himself to be highly mentally resilient, someone who refuses to give up.

What is the most important and defining relationship(s) in your character's life and why? The most important relationships he has are with people who aren't even alive anymore: the Ring Spirit and his younger sister Amane.

The Ring Spirit was Ryou's tormentor; he caused his host to be socially isolated for years and went out of his way to take advantage of Ryou's curiosity and desire to help to manipulate him to his own ends, with Ryou unaware of what the Spirit was up to until after he was finally defeated. Ryou clung to that Ring even after his friends expressed clear alarm and worry over him having it, largely out of curiosity towards it and the spirit tied to it, but also because the Spirit swore that he had turned good and wanted to help. In reality, this was a lie meant to make Ryou remain a compliant destined host/'landlord', as otherwise he would have refused to wear the Ring again.

That doesn't mean Ryou was completely oblivious; he did express some doubt when the Spirit first claimed to be good and actively stood up to him when he tried to kill his current group of friends. It's just that Ryou very likely wanted to think the Spirit had turned good and was being manipulated the whole way.

As for Amane, she was Ryou's younger sister who died in a car crash alongside their mother. We don't know much about how Ryou and Amane got along, but judging from how Ryou writes letters to her years after her death and his known personality, it's very likely that Ryou was a caring older brother. In fact, the letters paint a picture of someone who wishes to make sure his sister knows how he's doing and keep contact with her, even if only one of them is still alive.

What is your character's safespace? When do they feel the most settled and comfortable? When do they feel confident and relaxed? He feels most comfortable and confident when at the TTRPG table, GMing for his friends. Tabletop games are a very beloved hobby of his, and he loves getting to build up his own custom adventures to surprise his players with. This goes hand in hand with his diorama hobby; Ryou goes all in on building detailed minis and models for his games, and tends to take pride in his skills as a diorama maker and GM.

Notably, not even the actions of the Ring Spirit were enough to permanently put Ryou off his hobbies. Despite the Spirit taking advantage of Ryou's hobby to trap the souls of his friends in their tabletop miniatures and leave their bodies comatose, and Ryou at one point becoming terrified of playing for fear of more people being hurt, he rebounded quickly once the comas were stopped. It didn't take long for Ryou to resume creating scenarios to run for his friends and even creating new dioramas, eager to play once more.

What would your character sacrifice to get what they want or to reach their potential? What have they sacrificed already? What Ryou wants most, at the end of the day, is for the people he cares about to be safe and happy, and he would sacrifice damn near anything to make that happen. Even if it means letting go of something he personally wants to do, such as allowing himself to be excluded from uncovering Atem's memories to not hold up the rest of the group on his account after Bobasa's test declared Ryou to be 'evil' despite really wanting to help, he'll let go of his own needs anyway.

Obviously, this isn't reaching his own potential so much as letting his potential slip by, as Ryou could very easily push harder for his own desires if he wanted to. It's just that he doesn't want to be perceived as being 'a troublemaker', so he'll just. Fail to push back against his nasty gym teacher's demands for him to cut his hair short, or let himself be excluded, or insist on self isolating to stop any more mysterious comas from happening. It's fine.

(It's not fine.)

★ Player Information ★

Player Name: Absol
Pronouns: She/they
Are you over 18?: Yes!
Contact(s): darkestabsol
Who Invited You?: Usagi invited me!
Current Characters: N/A
Permissions: Here
Writing Samples: One, two

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Victory Road App

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 14:40:19 GMT

Player
Name: Absol
E-mail: N/A, Plurk or Discord please.
Preferred Contact: darkestabsol, Discord @ darkestabsol#8531
Timezone: PST
Current Characters in Victory Road: Narancia Ghirga (orangesmith)

Character
Name: Ryou Bakura
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Timeline: Immediately post Dark Side of Dimensions
Canon Resource Links: Here!

Personality: On a basic level, Ryou is a sweet, kind hearted guy who cares deeply for his friends and kept letting himself be possessed by the spirit of the Millennium Ring for far longer than he should have. And all that is true, but it's a very surface level view of him.

Ryou is very genuinely a nice guy at heart, caring immensely for his friends and family. In fact, he cares about them to an almost self sacrificial level, putting their needs ahead of his own if he thinks that's what he has to do. Examples of this range anywhere from moving out on his own to prevent any more people close to him from going into the mysterious comas that had been happening at the time, to claiming he was fine with being left out of the Memory World trip after being told he was Too Evil To Go (he wasn't fine and ran away crying, not to mention that it was the presence of the Ring that got him deemed Too Evil To Go), to sacrificing his own soul in a last ditch effort to stop the Ring Spirit from killing his friends (he got better, but had no idea he would come back from that at the time). This level of caring also leads him to write letters to his dead sister, telling her about his life and how he's been doing.

Tying into this, he's rather determined, putting up quite the fight against the Ring Spirit in his intro despite being possessed and largely unable to stop the spirit from trying to steal the souls/kill off his new friends via a heavily rigged TTRPG game. This fight included using what little control he had to fudge several dice rolls in favour of his friends and type out a message to the spirit on his laptop just to tell him that he's fighting too, and ultimately escalated to the last ditch effort of sacrificing his own soul to stop the spirit.

With all this, you'd think Ryou is the straightforward angel to the Ring Spirit's devil, but that's not quite true. Ryou has a mischievous/trollish streak just under the surface, which comes out during the Battle City arc when he tries to get his friend Jonouchi to look at his occult themed Duel Monsters deck despite knowing that Jonouchi was afraid of the supernatural. This streak came out again at the end of the arc when he helped Mai briefly fake her own death as a prank, with Ryou finding the whole thing funny when the 'death' was revealed to be a prank. He's also got a strong interest in the weird/creepy/occult, building the aforementioned occult themed Duel Monsters deck for himself with a heavy focus on cards like Dark Necrofear and Spirit Message. Ryou is also notably curious, expressing interest in learning more about the Millennium Items after finding out the Ring was haunted. However, this curiosity also gets him in trouble sometimes, most notably when, as a kid, he followed his father to the tomb the Millennium Ring was being kept in, only to end up being claimed as the Ring Spirit's unwitting host.

This brings us to the Millennium Ring and why Ryou kept it for so long. Part of why he kept it after realizing it was haunted was likely his own curiosity into the Millennium Items, along with his general interest in the occult. But a major influence was likely the Ring Spirit's own manipulations. During the Duelist Kingdom arc, the spirit is shown manipulating Ryou into putting the Ring back on by claiming that he'd turned good and knew how to get out of the puzzle Ryou and his friends were currently stuck in. Ryou, wanting to help, chose to put the Ring back on, despite distrust in the Spirit at the time. This paved the way for the spirit to further manipulate Ryou, hiding his true actions in the memory lapses the possessions caused so Ryou would think the spirit really had turned good. Obviously, this was all untrue, and the spirit was as evil as ever with Ryou once more the unwitting host.

However, by the events of Dark Side of Dimensions, Ryou is now permanently freed from the Ring and seems aware of the spirit's true nature, as shown when he desperately tries to explain to Aigami that the spirit's actions weren't his own. He also seems to have some degree of guilt for the Ring Spirit's actions, as despite trying to explain what happened to Aigami, he ends up tearfully apologizing anyways. His confrontation with Aigami also reveals that Ryou apparently buried his memory of when he first got the Ring as a child and didn't want to remember it, forcing Aigami to make Ryou (painfully) recall what happened that day.

All in all, Ryou is a very unfortunate young man who manages to stay the polite, kindhearted guy he is despite everything that happens to him in canon.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Hisuian Zorua
Password: Atomic Fireball

Samples
RP Sample: Here!
Victory Road Sample: Here!

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Voidtreckers App

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 05:53:15 GMT

Player Information

Name: Absol
Age: 25
Contact details: darkestabsol
Other characters: Masumi Sera

Character Information

Name: Ryou Bakura
Canon: Yu-Gi-Oh! (Manga+DSOD)
Canon Point: The Dark Side of Dimensions, at about the point where Ryou gets sent to another dimension.
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: OU
Age: 18

World Information: The world of Yu-Gi-Oh is A World. The series takes place in the mid to late 1990s, in a Japanese city called Domino City. The main focus of the series (once you get past the first 50+ chapters of the manga) is a card game called Duel Monsters, in which players use various monster, spell, and trap cards to try and drive their opponent's Life Points to zero. It's ridiculously popular in series. Popular enough that it's got large scale tournaments and a lot of issues are resolved through high stakes rounds of this children's card game.

The series also features seven Ancient Egyptian artifacts (some of which are cursed/haunted), Ancient Egyptian spirits, possessions by those spirits, and a lot of conflicts surrounding those artifacts and/or Duel Monsters.

Personal History: Here!

Personality:
On a basic level, Ryou is a polite, fairly nice guy who happens to have ownership of the Millennium Ring and keeps getting possessed by the malevolent spirit of said Ring. And this is true, but it leaves a lot out.

To start off, Ryou is genuinely a nice person, despite, well, everything. He's willing to support his friends in their goals, and doesn't mean any harm to them, in spite of the Ring. In fact, in his intro he warns Yugi and the others about how everyone he'd played Monster World with before had mysteriously fallen into comas, and tries to actively warn them off when they show up at his doorstep asking to play, having just found out why his previous friends had gone comatose. He's also hurt when he gets told that he can't join his friends in finding out the true name of the spirit possessing Yugi due to the evil in him (read: the evil from the Millennium Ring, not from him), and while he puts on a cheerful face for his friends, he ends up running away in tears.

He's got a determined side to him too, as shown in his intro when, while possessed and largely unable to stop the Ring Spirit from trying to kill his friends with a heavily rigged game of Monster World, he used what little control he had to fudge some of Ring Spirit's dice rolls and type out a message to the malevolent spirit to tell him that he's fighting too. He even goes so far as to send his soul into the dice, destroying said dice along with sacrificing himself in the process. (He does come back to life and recover from this, though.)

Under all this, Ryou is surprisingly creepy/mischievous, outright admitting that he likes creepy things and offering to show his Occult themed Duel Monsters deck to Jounouchi, who he knew was afraid of the supernatural. He also writes letters to his dead sister and willingly teams up with Mai to trick everyone into thinking Mai had died as a result of the Battle City tournament, finding this to be funny once it's quickly revealed that Mai is alive. He's also notably curious, expressing a desire to learn more about the Millennium Items and, as a child, following his archaeologist dad to Ancient Egypt when the older man went off in search of the Ring.

So if Ryou is such a well intentioned guy, why does he keep the Ring for as long as he does? There's a few answers for that: as stated previously, he wanted to know more about the Millennium Items and the Ring is a Millennium Item, he likes creepy stuff and the Ring is incredibly haunted/cursed, and the Ring Spirit ends up tricking Ryou into thinking that he'd turned good and wanted to help find the way out of a maze so that he would put the Ring back on. Needless to say, Ryou was tricked into putting the Ring back on.

Ryou also seems to have some degree of guilt for what happened during his possessions, as when Aigami confronts him over the death of Shadi in DSOD, Ryou tries to explain it wasn't truly him, but ends up tearfully apologizing anyways. This confrontation also reveals he apparently buried his memory of when he first got the Ring as a child and doesn't want to remember what happened, as Aigami has to force him to (painfully) remember what happened that day.

Finally, and as more of a side note than anything, Ryou is considered cute by the girls at his school, but he has no interest in them. His responses to their attempts to get his attention instead range from flustered reactions to internally thinking that he's not good with girls.

CRAU developments: N/A

Key themes:
Curiosity: Ryou's curiosity gets him in trouble more than once, as not only does he choose to keep the Millennium Ring partially out of wanting to learn more about the Millennium Items, but his childhood decision to secretly follow his father to Egypt out of curiosity is what causes him to get the Ring in the first place.
Supernatural possession: He's routinely and involuntarily possessed by the spirit of the Ring, and usually can't remember what happens during these possessions.

Main Motivation: To finally catch a break after everything that's happened to him over the series. His goal was previously to learn more about the Millennium Items, but he seems to have moved past that as of DSOD.

Skills:
-Cooking: Ryou seems to be decent at making food, based on a scene in the Duelist Kingdom arc in which he offered to cook the food for his friends while they were camping on the island. It apparently turned out well. Since he lives alone, this maybe isn't a surprise.
-Tabletop Gaming: Ryou has an interest in tabletop gaming, particularly a game called Monster World. Skills associated with this include acting as the DM for his games and making character figurines/miniatures.

Item: One set of tabletop gaming dice, in a small bag.

Sample: Here!

Notes:

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