beyond birthday (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
recinerate) wrote2015-12-02 08:03 pm
recinerate) wrote2015-12-02 08:03 pm
ooc; app for hadriel.
PLAYER
Player name: (the other) Rae
Contact: Plurk @ ventose; AIM @ last laugh blues; journal pm
Characters currently in-game: Nick Rivenna
CHARACTER
Character Name: Beyond Birthday (canon aliases: B, Backup, Rue Ryuzaki)
Character Age: Never specified in canon; he’s only described as a “young man.” I estimated his age to be around 22 years at the time of his death, up to 23 now with in-game time passage.
Canon: Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases
Canon Point: Post-death (Jan. 21, 2004), with five months in game at Last Voyages.
History: There are articles at both Wikipedia and the Death Note Wiki, but neither is terribly complete or accurate; my own canon history write-up follows:
There are not many specific facts known about Beyond Birthday from the text of Another Note before the events of the story in question. What is known, however, is that both of his parents were killed when he was quite young - his father was murdered by a thug, his mother died in a train crash - and he was eventually brought to the Wammy’s House orphanage in Winchester, England, to participate in a rigorous detective training program as B - Backup for the genius detective L.
B was the second candidate enrolled in the program, a child with a brilliant mind and an eccentric demeanor; the first candidate, A, was unable to cope with the various pressures of the intense training program and committed suicide. B excelled in the program for many years, yet ultimately was not chosen as L’s successor, for reasons not specified. It is speculated by Mello in his narration, however, that the first generation of trainees was perhaps meant to act as prototypes for the program, never intended to actually succeed as a successor to L. B disappeared from the House around May of 2002 - again, for reasons not specified - shortly before orchestrating what would come to be known as the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases in July and August of that same year.
The series of elaborate, grisly killings involved three victims, each seemingly unrelated to the next, save for the fact that each was found in a room locked from the inside, a decreasing number of Wara Ningyo dolls was nailed to the walls of the rooms where the victims were found, and each victim’s first and last name began with the same letter. Believe Bridesmaid, a 44-year-old freelance writer, was drugged and asphyxiated to death with a rope, with post-mortem cuts made on his chest, a code designed to indicate the second victim. Quarter Queen, a 13-year-old girl, was drugged and killed via blunt force trauma to her head; her eyes were crushed in post-mortem. Backyard Bottomslash, a 28-year-old bank worker, died from severe blood loss when her left arm and right leg were hacked off; the arm was never recovered.
The serial murders attracted L’s attention, just as B intended, and L enlisted the assistance of a suspended FBI agent named Naomi Misora in investigating the murders. B approached Naomi at the scene of the first murder, introducing himself as an “unprivate detective” named Rue Ryuzaki who had been hired by the murder victims’ families to investigate the murder, independent of the police. Under the guise of cooperative investigation, B skillfully led Naomi through the obscure clues he’d left behind at the scene of each murder, pointing to the location of the fourth and final murder. B’s intent at the final scene was to commit suicide by setting himself on fire after setting it up to look like another murder, and thus leave L with a puzzle he could never solve. This, in B’s mind, would prove that he was better than L. Naomi, however, was able to piece together the final clues and determine Ryuzaki’s identity as the killer, B (a fact that had been divulged to her by L), and place him under arrest before he was able to succeed in his suicide plot, though not before B was able to badly burn himself.
B spent the next year and a half recovering from his extensive burn injuries while serving a life sentence in prison for his crimes and died of a mysterious heart attack on January 21, 2004, one of the many, many victims of Kira and the Death Note.
Personality: The first proviso in describing the character of Beyond Birthday is that despite being a central figure in the story, the text is hazy on many of the details one would hope to find, such as thoughts, feelings, and motivations for his actions. (Personally, I blame Mello for being an unreliable narrator.) B is shown to act in certain ways, but as the story is not told from his point of view, we do not necessarily know why he makes the choices he does throughout the story. With such great gaps in the foundation, I as a player am left to fill in the holes with conclusions I have drawn that make the most sense, and I will do my best here to differentiate what is known and what can be deduced from what is known.
The second qualification in outlining the personality of Beyond Birthday is that there are two accounts of B in the text of Another Note - that of “Rue Ryuzaki,” the false detective, and that of B, the murderer. The Ryuzaki persona is a genuine weirdo capable of unsettling even a steady FBI agent like Naomi Misora; she describes him to L as “creepy and pathetic [...] such a complete freak that it amazes me he hasn’t killed himself.” B, the killer, is shown to be shrewd, calculating, and grimly determined; Mello describes him as “careful, and finicky.” The one thing, however, that ties both accounts together is the fact that Beyond Birthday is shown to be fundamentally strange.
The most important thing to know about B is the fact that he has possessed the eyes of a shinigami since birth. The eyes of a shinigami, or death god, allow anyone who possesses them to view any live human’s name and natural life span. Normally, in the Death Note universe, one must contract with a shinigami for this ability, but B received it without asking - it’s likely he himself never fully understood how or why he ended up with this gift, or even what its intended use is. But the ability to view life spans is the ability to view death, and thus B was surrounded with reminders of death from the day he was born. It is reasonable to assume, then, that his underlying eccentric manner stems from both this otherworldly ability and the fact he was orphaned at an early age. Surround a child with death at every turn, and it’s no surprise if he turns out quite twisted.
The second most important factor to consider about B is that he is a bona fide genius - “brilliant and deviant,” to use Mello’s words. Only the best and brightest were chosen for the program at Wammy’s House, and B was one of the original class trained to potentially succeed as L. We are not told exactly what sort of training B received in the program, but it is reasonable to conclude that it included extensive training in forensics and the investigative arts. He is adept at problem-solving, creative thinking, and logical reasoning, as evident in his prowess for both creating and solving puzzles, such as crossword puzzles and the carefully designed mysteries of his three murders. B is an expert speed-reader, speaks both English and Japanese fluently, and demonstrates high proficiency in mathematics. Although it is not stated in the text of Another Note, it is likely B is also proficient in a number of additional languages and skilled in various types of computer work, including some programming and hacking.
The third crucial aspect to B’s personality is that he is, in a single word, obsessive. He is driven, and will go to extremes - such as murder - to achieve his goals, yet I do not believe he is a sociopath or a psychopath, as he does not demonstrate key traits like a lack of empathy or consideration for others. His obsession is simply to surpass L, by any means necessary - he will commit murder to do so, but he chooses victims with a painstaking amount of planning. B uses his shinigami eyes to choose victims who are destined to die the same day he plans to commit the murders, and he drugs them before committing the actual, gruesome murders, presumably so they will not suffer. B may be emotionally misdeveloped in some aspects, but not does not appear to be entirely unfeeling or lacking a moral code. His general line of thinking seems to be “do as L, only bigger, better, more extreme.”
B is driven, rational, calculating - once he has a goal in mind, B does not give up. His determination is perhaps his greatest character strength, and likely a result of his training. L is known to meet his goal by whatever means necessary, even if they are sometimes questionable, so it’s reasonable to assume that a program based on his methods would teach the same.
We are told nothing about how B interacted with his peers at Wammy’s prior to leaving the house and commencing his private war with L, but I believe he did not, for the most part, maintain close relationships. Since he had been surrounded with reminders of death his entire life, and since he lost both of his parents at an early age, it’s reasonable to consider that B taught himself early on in life not to allow himself to form attachments with many other people, simply as a strategy for survival. However, I believe he craves affection, attention, and meaningful relationships, precisely because he has not had them. This sense of disconnect from other people and sense of loss in general can also largely explain why B’s personality is so obsessive in nature - he clings to things he holds dear because he knows he will, eventually, lose them.
Such an fanatical disposition would also naturally extend to L. I believe that, for a person without any significant close relationships, it would make sense to fixate on L as an idol of sorts, an absentee role model, on a deeply personal level. L would have been revered as a paragon to strive for in every way.
The most notable information absent in the story pertains to why B left the House and chose to start a war with L. “I have no way of knowing the inner workings of his mind,” Mello says, but he notes of the first generation at Wammy’s House: “They were prototypes, never even given the L code, expected to fail.” It’s reasonable to assume that B did not know he was an experiment; that fact would have been kept confidential in order to avoid contaminating the research. The most logical scenario I have been able to devise for B’s motivations is this: he somehow discovered that he was only an experiment and felt so personally betrayed by this man he had held in the highest regard, he retaliated with extreme measures. In order to beat L, the world’s greatest detective, into complete submission, B turned to the one thing he knew would attract L’s attention - crime, an inversion of everything L stood for.
Inventory: Just the clothes he’s wearing (jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt) and, in his pockets: his Barge comm device (which I assume will be nonfunctional here); a mostly-full pack of GItanes cigarettes; a cheap plastic lighter; and a small stone that has been turned into an amulet for protection against transformation magic (which will only work once, then it will crack and be of no further use).
Abilities: Beyond is a skilled mimic and actor, capable of maintaining a convincing long-term public persona as an “unprivate detective” named Rue Ryuzaki with ease. Under the guise of Ryuzaki, B acts much less intelligent than he actually is, “playing the fool,” in effect, in order to gather information, subtly manipulate other people, and set his plans into motion.
Even outside of this act, Beyond lies, frequently and with precise calculation, and will not hesitate to give misinformation if it suits his purpose - and it generally does.
Beyond is not particularly strong or trained in hand-to-hand combat, but he is stronger than his twig-like frame would suggest, and he’s incredibly quick on his feet. Beyond does not generally instigate physical attacks, but when he does, it’s always a calculated maneuver, and he favors stealth and small, simple weapons, such as the club used to test Naomi Misora.
As far as his personality is concerned, Beyond’s greatest strength is his determination. He will do anything possible to achieve his goals - when his goal is to surpass L, B even turns to murder and becomes a criminal, in order to simply win and become better than L. Once he has a goal in mind, Beyond does not give up. He is very smart, though notably misguided.
Beyond’s only real otherworldly power would be his shinigami eyes. Unlike regular humans, who have the option of trading a shinigami this skill for half of their remaining lifespan, B was born with this ability at no additional upfront cost, and without the element of choice. With the shinigami eyes, B is able to see any live human’s true name and life span. Following Death Note in-universe rules about how the shinigami eyes work, this will only occur if B is able to see more than half of the face, usually the top half. Conversely, if more than half of the person’s face is covered, such as with a mask or large sunglasses, B will not be able to see that person’s name and life span. (Side note: I always include a permissions post like this for players to fill out.)
As noted above, Beyond is adept at problem-solving, creative thinking, and logical reasoning, as evident in his prowess for both creating and solving puzzles, such as crossword puzzles and the carefully designed mysteries of his three murders. He is an expert speed-reader, speaks both English and Japanese fluently, and demonstrates high proficiency in mathematics. Although it is not stated in the text of Another Note, it is likely he is also proficient in a number of additional languages (French and Russian have both come up in the previous game) and skilled in various types of computer work, including some programming and hacking.
Weaknesses: While he is stronger than he looks, Beyond is still not particularly strong - no more so than the average person who spends most of the time indoors and does not train physically. He would be easily overpowered by a show of brute force, or an aggressive attack by someone trained in hand-to-hand combat or martial arts.
Beyond’s greatest personality weakness is shortsightedness with respect to his obsessiveness; his eventual downfall is caused by the fact that he became so fixated on one thing - beating L - that he failed to consider anything else. For example, B underestimated Naomi Misora’s deductive abilities, and she was able to solve the mystery of his identity as the killer behind the series of murders and apprehend B before he was able to set the final stage of his murder plan into motion. Beyond’s skewed world view is also something of weakness - though he is not prone to outbursts or displays of action not thoroughly calculated, he is still somewhat emotionally unstable, especially considering that the end result of the series of murders was intended to be a rather gruesome suicide.
Although not explicitly stated in canon, it’s most likely that Beyond’s biggest fear is that of failure, on a general, all-encompassing scale. He’s dedicated a large portion of his life to training as a potential successor to L, and there seems to be a lot of personal investment in this one thing - that is, his sense of self-worth appears to be wrapped up in the idea of being good enough to be the next L, better than the other contenders. Failure in this respect amounts to a wholesale lack of purpose for Beyond’s very existence, and it can thus be argued that this is another large factor in why he intended for his endgame to be his suicide.
Flaws: Beyond Birthday did some pretty reprehensible things toward the end of his life - committing a series of three murders with the primary motivation being a grab for attention from L sits at the top of this list. His way of thinking is deeply flawed; for example, he thinks nothing of using human lives as pieces in a cleverly designed puzzle, a means to an end, and even though he did not act in an unnecessarily cruel way (choosing victims who were slated to die on the day he killed them and drugging them before committing the actual murder, presumably so they were not aware and would not suffer), I do not believe he feels any sort of remorse for his actions. In his mind, everything Beyond did was justified in service to the bigger picture of creating an unsolvable puzzle for L and thus proving he was better than L. He’s stubborn and angry, childish and manipulative.
CR AU
Previous Game and Time: The Last Voyages; June-November 2015.
Previous Development: Beyond woke on the Barge after experiencing his heart attack death in prison, and he was unhappy about the arrangement from the very start. Death is, of course, supposed to be permanent, and as something of an expert on the subject of death, he found his resurrection more than a little unsettling. His first encounter with another person (Imperator Furiosa; Mad Max: Fury Road) revealed that he could no longer see the names and life spans he’d been accustomed to seeing his entire life, which served to further set his nerves on edge; he later learned that his power had been stripped by the Admiral, the entity who ran the Barge and brought people there as either inmates or wardens, which infuriated him.
Beyond learned that he’d been brought to the Barge by the Admiral for the sole purpose of redemption, which was a notion he found both ludicrous and insulting. In his mind, he’d done nothing to deserve such treatment in his previous life - the three murders he committed were completely justified in service of his greater goal of defeating L.
Beyond’s first and most important relationship was immediately forged with a boy named Cassel Sharpe (Curse Workers books), who took a particular and aggressive interest in befriending Beyond. A former inmate who’d graduated and stayed on as a warden, Cassel demonstrated his ability to transform objects with touch for Beyond, who of course found the existence of actual magic interesting. He also spoke freely about his family, particularly his brothers, who had manipulated him into a variety of criminal activities, which amounted to nothing short of betrayal by those most important to him - something Beyond latched onto as similar to his own experience with L. The main difference, though, was that while Cassel was successful in taking his revenge against his brothers, Beyond failed in his attempt against L. Cassel was later assigned as Beyond’s warden, but before that, he became Beyond’s friend - his first friend. His first act as Beyond’s warden was to have his eyesight restored by the Admiral.
Another significant person Beyond met on the Barge was a young man (code)named Mello, a fellow orphan and child of Wammy’s House who had gone through the same training as Beyond, as a potential successor to L, though many years later, after Beyond had already left the House to declare war on L. They only barely knew of each other while they were both living, but after both were dead and brought to the Barge as inmates, they became extremely close - first as allies, then as friends and intimate partners. Through Mello, Beyond learned the truth of his power, the nature of his death (and Mello’s - both were killed by a Death Note), and the fact that L was also dead, also from a Death Note. Together with Mello, Beyond began to explore the unhealthy nature of the doctrine they’d both been subjected to at the House, and made a conscious effort to abandon some of that same doctrine - particularly the instruction to “abandon emotion” in favor of logical thought. Instead, Mello and Beyond decided to embrace emotion with each other - love in particular.
This shift in thinking came a little easier for Beyond, as a result of a Barge event known as a “breach,” in which passengers became transported into alternate lives. Shortly after Mello’s arrival, when their alliance had only just been formed, a breach occurred that gave Beyond the memories and personality of a math and physics prodigy named Bryan Ryuzaki, in a world that had seen dinosaurs recreated (much like in Jurassic Park et al.) and time travel possible through wormholes. ReGen, the company responsible for the scientific advancements, employed Bryan as an expert consultant on wormhole technology, and at a company seminar, he became acquainted with ReGen “exploration specialist” Dean Winchester (Supernatural). Bryan and Dean quickly formed a romantic relationship, and the residual feelings that resulted from the events in that breach carried over to Beyond once the breach ended, leaving him heartbroken and angry over Dean’s apparent rejection (in reality, a misunderstanding). The more positive net result was that Beyond acquired memories of living a more normal life and exploring love in a more normal setting, which he was then able to translate into his later relationship with Mello.
Shortly after Beyond’s sight was restored, another Barge event known as a “port” caused significant upheaval in Beyond and Mello’s relationship. Ports resemble breaches in that they transport Barge residents to a different location, but the difference is that they retain their own memories instead of being given alternate personalities and memories and lives. This particular port took the shape of a luxury resort with attached sideshow carnival; the sinister side was that the dangerous sideshow acts were to be performed by wardens in order to pay off their inmates’ debts. The nature of these debts were vague, never specified, it was just a given aspect of the port - inmates had debts, their wardens would pay them off with a series of performances, up to and including their deaths. Unsettled by the sudden recurrence of his shinigami sight and the prevalent reminders of death that it signified, and upset by the idea of Cassel (both his friend and his warden) being killed because of him, Beyond instead opted to make a bargain with the Ringmaster - a trade of a memory for Cassel’s life. The loss of that memory created a ripple effect of also erasing the memory of the first time Mello told Beyond he loved him, which was a difficult thing for him to say in the first place, and which deeply upset the other man. Overwrought by the idea that Mello might never forgive him for his mistake, Beyond confided to Shiro (Deadman Wonderland), a strange girl and fellow inmate he’d befriended on the Barge, that he wanted to die. Shiro was killed in one of the sideshow performances and spent several weeks after in a coma; when she awoke, it was as the Wretched Egg, a much less childlike, much more vicious and murderous personality. The Wretched Egg knew about Shiro and Beyond’s friendship, and about what they’d discussed in the port. She sought Beyond out in the Barge library, cornered him, and killed him, using her weaponized blood and super strength to rip him to literal pieces.
SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: Test-driven here!
Player name: (the other) Rae
Contact: Plurk @ ventose; AIM @ last laugh blues; journal pm
Characters currently in-game: Nick Rivenna
CHARACTER
Character Name: Beyond Birthday (canon aliases: B, Backup, Rue Ryuzaki)
Character Age: Never specified in canon; he’s only described as a “young man.” I estimated his age to be around 22 years at the time of his death, up to 23 now with in-game time passage.
Canon: Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases
Canon Point: Post-death (Jan. 21, 2004), with five months in game at Last Voyages.
History: There are articles at both Wikipedia and the Death Note Wiki, but neither is terribly complete or accurate; my own canon history write-up follows:
There are not many specific facts known about Beyond Birthday from the text of Another Note before the events of the story in question. What is known, however, is that both of his parents were killed when he was quite young - his father was murdered by a thug, his mother died in a train crash - and he was eventually brought to the Wammy’s House orphanage in Winchester, England, to participate in a rigorous detective training program as B - Backup for the genius detective L.
B was the second candidate enrolled in the program, a child with a brilliant mind and an eccentric demeanor; the first candidate, A, was unable to cope with the various pressures of the intense training program and committed suicide. B excelled in the program for many years, yet ultimately was not chosen as L’s successor, for reasons not specified. It is speculated by Mello in his narration, however, that the first generation of trainees was perhaps meant to act as prototypes for the program, never intended to actually succeed as a successor to L. B disappeared from the House around May of 2002 - again, for reasons not specified - shortly before orchestrating what would come to be known as the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases in July and August of that same year.
The series of elaborate, grisly killings involved three victims, each seemingly unrelated to the next, save for the fact that each was found in a room locked from the inside, a decreasing number of Wara Ningyo dolls was nailed to the walls of the rooms where the victims were found, and each victim’s first and last name began with the same letter. Believe Bridesmaid, a 44-year-old freelance writer, was drugged and asphyxiated to death with a rope, with post-mortem cuts made on his chest, a code designed to indicate the second victim. Quarter Queen, a 13-year-old girl, was drugged and killed via blunt force trauma to her head; her eyes were crushed in post-mortem. Backyard Bottomslash, a 28-year-old bank worker, died from severe blood loss when her left arm and right leg were hacked off; the arm was never recovered.
The serial murders attracted L’s attention, just as B intended, and L enlisted the assistance of a suspended FBI agent named Naomi Misora in investigating the murders. B approached Naomi at the scene of the first murder, introducing himself as an “unprivate detective” named Rue Ryuzaki who had been hired by the murder victims’ families to investigate the murder, independent of the police. Under the guise of cooperative investigation, B skillfully led Naomi through the obscure clues he’d left behind at the scene of each murder, pointing to the location of the fourth and final murder. B’s intent at the final scene was to commit suicide by setting himself on fire after setting it up to look like another murder, and thus leave L with a puzzle he could never solve. This, in B’s mind, would prove that he was better than L. Naomi, however, was able to piece together the final clues and determine Ryuzaki’s identity as the killer, B (a fact that had been divulged to her by L), and place him under arrest before he was able to succeed in his suicide plot, though not before B was able to badly burn himself.
B spent the next year and a half recovering from his extensive burn injuries while serving a life sentence in prison for his crimes and died of a mysterious heart attack on January 21, 2004, one of the many, many victims of Kira and the Death Note.
Personality: The first proviso in describing the character of Beyond Birthday is that despite being a central figure in the story, the text is hazy on many of the details one would hope to find, such as thoughts, feelings, and motivations for his actions. (Personally, I blame Mello for being an unreliable narrator.) B is shown to act in certain ways, but as the story is not told from his point of view, we do not necessarily know why he makes the choices he does throughout the story. With such great gaps in the foundation, I as a player am left to fill in the holes with conclusions I have drawn that make the most sense, and I will do my best here to differentiate what is known and what can be deduced from what is known.
The second qualification in outlining the personality of Beyond Birthday is that there are two accounts of B in the text of Another Note - that of “Rue Ryuzaki,” the false detective, and that of B, the murderer. The Ryuzaki persona is a genuine weirdo capable of unsettling even a steady FBI agent like Naomi Misora; she describes him to L as “creepy and pathetic [...] such a complete freak that it amazes me he hasn’t killed himself.” B, the killer, is shown to be shrewd, calculating, and grimly determined; Mello describes him as “careful, and finicky.” The one thing, however, that ties both accounts together is the fact that Beyond Birthday is shown to be fundamentally strange.
The most important thing to know about B is the fact that he has possessed the eyes of a shinigami since birth. The eyes of a shinigami, or death god, allow anyone who possesses them to view any live human’s name and natural life span. Normally, in the Death Note universe, one must contract with a shinigami for this ability, but B received it without asking - it’s likely he himself never fully understood how or why he ended up with this gift, or even what its intended use is. But the ability to view life spans is the ability to view death, and thus B was surrounded with reminders of death from the day he was born. It is reasonable to assume, then, that his underlying eccentric manner stems from both this otherworldly ability and the fact he was orphaned at an early age. Surround a child with death at every turn, and it’s no surprise if he turns out quite twisted.
The second most important factor to consider about B is that he is a bona fide genius - “brilliant and deviant,” to use Mello’s words. Only the best and brightest were chosen for the program at Wammy’s House, and B was one of the original class trained to potentially succeed as L. We are not told exactly what sort of training B received in the program, but it is reasonable to conclude that it included extensive training in forensics and the investigative arts. He is adept at problem-solving, creative thinking, and logical reasoning, as evident in his prowess for both creating and solving puzzles, such as crossword puzzles and the carefully designed mysteries of his three murders. B is an expert speed-reader, speaks both English and Japanese fluently, and demonstrates high proficiency in mathematics. Although it is not stated in the text of Another Note, it is likely B is also proficient in a number of additional languages and skilled in various types of computer work, including some programming and hacking.
The third crucial aspect to B’s personality is that he is, in a single word, obsessive. He is driven, and will go to extremes - such as murder - to achieve his goals, yet I do not believe he is a sociopath or a psychopath, as he does not demonstrate key traits like a lack of empathy or consideration for others. His obsession is simply to surpass L, by any means necessary - he will commit murder to do so, but he chooses victims with a painstaking amount of planning. B uses his shinigami eyes to choose victims who are destined to die the same day he plans to commit the murders, and he drugs them before committing the actual, gruesome murders, presumably so they will not suffer. B may be emotionally misdeveloped in some aspects, but not does not appear to be entirely unfeeling or lacking a moral code. His general line of thinking seems to be “do as L, only bigger, better, more extreme.”
B is driven, rational, calculating - once he has a goal in mind, B does not give up. His determination is perhaps his greatest character strength, and likely a result of his training. L is known to meet his goal by whatever means necessary, even if they are sometimes questionable, so it’s reasonable to assume that a program based on his methods would teach the same.
We are told nothing about how B interacted with his peers at Wammy’s prior to leaving the house and commencing his private war with L, but I believe he did not, for the most part, maintain close relationships. Since he had been surrounded with reminders of death his entire life, and since he lost both of his parents at an early age, it’s reasonable to consider that B taught himself early on in life not to allow himself to form attachments with many other people, simply as a strategy for survival. However, I believe he craves affection, attention, and meaningful relationships, precisely because he has not had them. This sense of disconnect from other people and sense of loss in general can also largely explain why B’s personality is so obsessive in nature - he clings to things he holds dear because he knows he will, eventually, lose them.
Such an fanatical disposition would also naturally extend to L. I believe that, for a person without any significant close relationships, it would make sense to fixate on L as an idol of sorts, an absentee role model, on a deeply personal level. L would have been revered as a paragon to strive for in every way.
The most notable information absent in the story pertains to why B left the House and chose to start a war with L. “I have no way of knowing the inner workings of his mind,” Mello says, but he notes of the first generation at Wammy’s House: “They were prototypes, never even given the L code, expected to fail.” It’s reasonable to assume that B did not know he was an experiment; that fact would have been kept confidential in order to avoid contaminating the research. The most logical scenario I have been able to devise for B’s motivations is this: he somehow discovered that he was only an experiment and felt so personally betrayed by this man he had held in the highest regard, he retaliated with extreme measures. In order to beat L, the world’s greatest detective, into complete submission, B turned to the one thing he knew would attract L’s attention - crime, an inversion of everything L stood for.
Inventory: Just the clothes he’s wearing (jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt) and, in his pockets: his Barge comm device (which I assume will be nonfunctional here); a mostly-full pack of GItanes cigarettes; a cheap plastic lighter; and a small stone that has been turned into an amulet for protection against transformation magic (which will only work once, then it will crack and be of no further use).
Abilities: Beyond is a skilled mimic and actor, capable of maintaining a convincing long-term public persona as an “unprivate detective” named Rue Ryuzaki with ease. Under the guise of Ryuzaki, B acts much less intelligent than he actually is, “playing the fool,” in effect, in order to gather information, subtly manipulate other people, and set his plans into motion.
Even outside of this act, Beyond lies, frequently and with precise calculation, and will not hesitate to give misinformation if it suits his purpose - and it generally does.
Beyond is not particularly strong or trained in hand-to-hand combat, but he is stronger than his twig-like frame would suggest, and he’s incredibly quick on his feet. Beyond does not generally instigate physical attacks, but when he does, it’s always a calculated maneuver, and he favors stealth and small, simple weapons, such as the club used to test Naomi Misora.
As far as his personality is concerned, Beyond’s greatest strength is his determination. He will do anything possible to achieve his goals - when his goal is to surpass L, B even turns to murder and becomes a criminal, in order to simply win and become better than L. Once he has a goal in mind, Beyond does not give up. He is very smart, though notably misguided.
Beyond’s only real otherworldly power would be his shinigami eyes. Unlike regular humans, who have the option of trading a shinigami this skill for half of their remaining lifespan, B was born with this ability at no additional upfront cost, and without the element of choice. With the shinigami eyes, B is able to see any live human’s true name and life span. Following Death Note in-universe rules about how the shinigami eyes work, this will only occur if B is able to see more than half of the face, usually the top half. Conversely, if more than half of the person’s face is covered, such as with a mask or large sunglasses, B will not be able to see that person’s name and life span. (Side note: I always include a permissions post like this for players to fill out.)
As noted above, Beyond is adept at problem-solving, creative thinking, and logical reasoning, as evident in his prowess for both creating and solving puzzles, such as crossword puzzles and the carefully designed mysteries of his three murders. He is an expert speed-reader, speaks both English and Japanese fluently, and demonstrates high proficiency in mathematics. Although it is not stated in the text of Another Note, it is likely he is also proficient in a number of additional languages (French and Russian have both come up in the previous game) and skilled in various types of computer work, including some programming and hacking.
Weaknesses: While he is stronger than he looks, Beyond is still not particularly strong - no more so than the average person who spends most of the time indoors and does not train physically. He would be easily overpowered by a show of brute force, or an aggressive attack by someone trained in hand-to-hand combat or martial arts.
Beyond’s greatest personality weakness is shortsightedness with respect to his obsessiveness; his eventual downfall is caused by the fact that he became so fixated on one thing - beating L - that he failed to consider anything else. For example, B underestimated Naomi Misora’s deductive abilities, and she was able to solve the mystery of his identity as the killer behind the series of murders and apprehend B before he was able to set the final stage of his murder plan into motion. Beyond’s skewed world view is also something of weakness - though he is not prone to outbursts or displays of action not thoroughly calculated, he is still somewhat emotionally unstable, especially considering that the end result of the series of murders was intended to be a rather gruesome suicide.
Although not explicitly stated in canon, it’s most likely that Beyond’s biggest fear is that of failure, on a general, all-encompassing scale. He’s dedicated a large portion of his life to training as a potential successor to L, and there seems to be a lot of personal investment in this one thing - that is, his sense of self-worth appears to be wrapped up in the idea of being good enough to be the next L, better than the other contenders. Failure in this respect amounts to a wholesale lack of purpose for Beyond’s very existence, and it can thus be argued that this is another large factor in why he intended for his endgame to be his suicide.
Flaws: Beyond Birthday did some pretty reprehensible things toward the end of his life - committing a series of three murders with the primary motivation being a grab for attention from L sits at the top of this list. His way of thinking is deeply flawed; for example, he thinks nothing of using human lives as pieces in a cleverly designed puzzle, a means to an end, and even though he did not act in an unnecessarily cruel way (choosing victims who were slated to die on the day he killed them and drugging them before committing the actual murder, presumably so they were not aware and would not suffer), I do not believe he feels any sort of remorse for his actions. In his mind, everything Beyond did was justified in service to the bigger picture of creating an unsolvable puzzle for L and thus proving he was better than L. He’s stubborn and angry, childish and manipulative.
CR AU
Previous Game and Time: The Last Voyages; June-November 2015.
Previous Development: Beyond woke on the Barge after experiencing his heart attack death in prison, and he was unhappy about the arrangement from the very start. Death is, of course, supposed to be permanent, and as something of an expert on the subject of death, he found his resurrection more than a little unsettling. His first encounter with another person (Imperator Furiosa; Mad Max: Fury Road) revealed that he could no longer see the names and life spans he’d been accustomed to seeing his entire life, which served to further set his nerves on edge; he later learned that his power had been stripped by the Admiral, the entity who ran the Barge and brought people there as either inmates or wardens, which infuriated him.
Beyond learned that he’d been brought to the Barge by the Admiral for the sole purpose of redemption, which was a notion he found both ludicrous and insulting. In his mind, he’d done nothing to deserve such treatment in his previous life - the three murders he committed were completely justified in service of his greater goal of defeating L.
Beyond’s first and most important relationship was immediately forged with a boy named Cassel Sharpe (Curse Workers books), who took a particular and aggressive interest in befriending Beyond. A former inmate who’d graduated and stayed on as a warden, Cassel demonstrated his ability to transform objects with touch for Beyond, who of course found the existence of actual magic interesting. He also spoke freely about his family, particularly his brothers, who had manipulated him into a variety of criminal activities, which amounted to nothing short of betrayal by those most important to him - something Beyond latched onto as similar to his own experience with L. The main difference, though, was that while Cassel was successful in taking his revenge against his brothers, Beyond failed in his attempt against L. Cassel was later assigned as Beyond’s warden, but before that, he became Beyond’s friend - his first friend. His first act as Beyond’s warden was to have his eyesight restored by the Admiral.
Another significant person Beyond met on the Barge was a young man (code)named Mello, a fellow orphan and child of Wammy’s House who had gone through the same training as Beyond, as a potential successor to L, though many years later, after Beyond had already left the House to declare war on L. They only barely knew of each other while they were both living, but after both were dead and brought to the Barge as inmates, they became extremely close - first as allies, then as friends and intimate partners. Through Mello, Beyond learned the truth of his power, the nature of his death (and Mello’s - both were killed by a Death Note), and the fact that L was also dead, also from a Death Note. Together with Mello, Beyond began to explore the unhealthy nature of the doctrine they’d both been subjected to at the House, and made a conscious effort to abandon some of that same doctrine - particularly the instruction to “abandon emotion” in favor of logical thought. Instead, Mello and Beyond decided to embrace emotion with each other - love in particular.
This shift in thinking came a little easier for Beyond, as a result of a Barge event known as a “breach,” in which passengers became transported into alternate lives. Shortly after Mello’s arrival, when their alliance had only just been formed, a breach occurred that gave Beyond the memories and personality of a math and physics prodigy named Bryan Ryuzaki, in a world that had seen dinosaurs recreated (much like in Jurassic Park et al.) and time travel possible through wormholes. ReGen, the company responsible for the scientific advancements, employed Bryan as an expert consultant on wormhole technology, and at a company seminar, he became acquainted with ReGen “exploration specialist” Dean Winchester (Supernatural). Bryan and Dean quickly formed a romantic relationship, and the residual feelings that resulted from the events in that breach carried over to Beyond once the breach ended, leaving him heartbroken and angry over Dean’s apparent rejection (in reality, a misunderstanding). The more positive net result was that Beyond acquired memories of living a more normal life and exploring love in a more normal setting, which he was then able to translate into his later relationship with Mello.
Shortly after Beyond’s sight was restored, another Barge event known as a “port” caused significant upheaval in Beyond and Mello’s relationship. Ports resemble breaches in that they transport Barge residents to a different location, but the difference is that they retain their own memories instead of being given alternate personalities and memories and lives. This particular port took the shape of a luxury resort with attached sideshow carnival; the sinister side was that the dangerous sideshow acts were to be performed by wardens in order to pay off their inmates’ debts. The nature of these debts were vague, never specified, it was just a given aspect of the port - inmates had debts, their wardens would pay them off with a series of performances, up to and including their deaths. Unsettled by the sudden recurrence of his shinigami sight and the prevalent reminders of death that it signified, and upset by the idea of Cassel (both his friend and his warden) being killed because of him, Beyond instead opted to make a bargain with the Ringmaster - a trade of a memory for Cassel’s life. The loss of that memory created a ripple effect of also erasing the memory of the first time Mello told Beyond he loved him, which was a difficult thing for him to say in the first place, and which deeply upset the other man. Overwrought by the idea that Mello might never forgive him for his mistake, Beyond confided to Shiro (Deadman Wonderland), a strange girl and fellow inmate he’d befriended on the Barge, that he wanted to die. Shiro was killed in one of the sideshow performances and spent several weeks after in a coma; when she awoke, it was as the Wretched Egg, a much less childlike, much more vicious and murderous personality. The Wretched Egg knew about Shiro and Beyond’s friendship, and about what they’d discussed in the port. She sought Beyond out in the Barge library, cornered him, and killed him, using her weaponized blood and super strength to rip him to literal pieces.
SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: Test-driven here!