Player Information

Name: Nat
Age: 37
Contact details: Ammeschan Discord: Ammeschan#5385
Other characters: Senku Ishigami, Prompto Argentum, Demyx

Character Information

Name: Rui Ninomiya
Canon: Gatchaman Crowds Insight
Canon Point: Episode 4
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: OU
Age: 19

World Information:

Gatchaman Crowds (and Insight) take place in modern day Japan, with season one taking place in 2015, and Insight taking place in 2016. The world nearly mirrors are own, with one exception - the social media app GALAX has deeply taken root in the country, with the number of users rising daily.

GALAX is overseen by an A.I. named X. Users can ask X a variety of questions, and X will match them up with people in their local area who have the skills they need in any given situation. The people who are on GALAX, (GALAXTERS) use it for just about anything they can think of. GALAX taps into everything including all of the surveillance cameras in any given area to get all the information required.

To motivate people into helping, GALAX allows users to gain points by clearing various events. Events could be akin to saving people from a burning building, or getting someone who's hungry a meal. The idea behind it is crowdsourcing good deeds.

Outside of the general population, there are a few individuals who's power has been awakened by an alien named JJ. These are the Gatchaman. Their job primarily is to defend the planet from alien threats, but most of the members are the heroic type, who would jump into danger without hesitation. Japan at large had no idea that the heroes were in their midst, thanks to Amnesia Effect.

By 2016, not only did Japan know of the Gatchaman, they watched their social media updates. Another app, CROWDS was running rampant and even things like elections were being decided online. The world is inherently far more tuned into social media than reality is.

Personal History:

Little is known about Rui's childhood, except that she was born male in 1997, and encountered Berg Katze prior to 2011, probably no earlier than 2009. At the time she encountered Berg Katze, she was presenting as female. She used the internet to learn everything she could about hacking and programming and honed her skills by observing and interacting with hackers worldwide. Prior to meeting Berg Katze, Rui created GALAX as well as programmed X to do the bulk of the day-to-day running of the social media phenomenon. Sometime around then, Rui moved into her big, expensive penthouse apartment. She does not appear to have contact with her family, no photos or anything like that, her only friend appears to be X.

Berg Katze encountered Rui one night and saw potential in her, so they reached inside of her and drew out a purple NOTE, not unlike those used by the Gatchaman. This bestowed upon Rui the power of CROWDS. Rui was initially intrigued by the alien, but soon learned that she needed to be terrified of them. They came by from time to time to pester Rui into doing one thing or another, annoyed by her reluctance to use it, which made her more wary. Notably her reluctance and hesitation during the 2011 earthquake caused a lot of casualties that in her mind were unnecessary, so with great trepidation, Rui formed The Hundred. She selected a hundred users of GALAX and sent them an app so they could project their will in a strange digital form in the real world with the intent on using them to do good. By 2015, she was using it rarely to do things like save people from perilous situations, and had dismissed at least one user for calling for the murder of politicians. Rui believes in a bloodless revolution.

Rui met the Gatchaman, notably Hajime Ichinose, one night during a tunnel collapse when she and her hundred went to assist those hurt in the tunnel. Hajime revealed herself when she realized Rui could see her as the owner of a NOTE. This led to Rui sending her an invitation to meet at a better time, so she could discuss the merits of abolishing super heroes. She presented herself as LOAD GALAX, using her hacker name to obfuscate her identity. At the same time, Rui saw Berg Katze as a major problem and something to be eliminated. She didn't ask for help, but rather gathered her Hundred (which was only about 50 users or so at this point) and faced off against the alien. In one fell swoop, they destroyed the Hundred and took great pleasure in defeating and whipping Rui repeatedly, seeing her as a failed experiment because Berg Katze wanted to see the world burn. At this time, she stole Rui's NOTE, leaving her helpless. The Gatchaman arrived to save her, but when she regained consciousness she was alone and she went home under her own power.

Berg Katze began to sow chaos and discord and Rui encountered them the next day where the alien kissed her and stole her form, subsequently using the biometrics that Rui used to access X and steal the A.I. program, CROWDS and GALAX from her. Rui slipped into depression with no one around her and did little but lie around until Hajime called her out, asking to meet with her on television. Rui went to meet with them. Rui went online to make a formal apology, as CROWDS was becoming dangerous, without any makeup or glamorous clothing and subsequently received a torrent of hate and death threats. Hajime smiled and told her just to turn her tablet off. Rui was not able to do much during the final battle, until OD returned her NOTE to her. At that time, she used social media to her advantage by sending CROWDS to everyone. She let anyone use it if they wanted, how they wanted, but would submit games such as 'cook rice balls for starving people' and 'help rebuild infrastructure' with cute names and got people engaged in doing good around the hard hit community.

At some point between the attack by Berg Katze and the beginning of Insight, Rui joins the Gatchaman formally, and discovers her transformation and skills.

In 2016, the first thing they do is save the prime minister from an attack from some red CROWDS. The source was a medical student named Rizumu Suzuki who had also encountered Berg Katze at some point but sat on his powers much longer than Rui. He founded the terrorist organization VAPE. VAPE continues to terrorize Japan, culminating in a showdown in Shibuya. Rizumu has the express desire to eliminate CROWDS, because he believes humans can't be responsible with power. He calls Rui out and Rui agrees to meet him on a rooftop. He hurls accusations at her that she doesn't want to do good, she just wants to play with her toys and she disengages her transformation and offers her NOTE as a gesture of trust and goodwill. Rizumu accepts Rui's trust and repeatedly thrusts a dagger into her NOTE, causing severe internal damage, leaving Rui in a pool of her own blood. Rizumu gives up then, allowing himself to be arrested while the Gatchaman are left with a member down and fractured - this leads to the members taking sides against Rui and her power of CROWDS.

Personality:

Rui is an introverted, shy, reclusive extreme idealist. Rui doesn't typically engage in the world much outside of her penthouse prior to joining the Gatchaman. She's shy, but outspoken. She tends to avoid most people, blending into the crowds with people around who don't know her, although notably wandering around Tokyo is not something she does much in 2016, perhaps because her face is out there and she's recognizable. Initially using the moniker LOAD, once Rui came out as the engineer of GALAX and supporter of Gatchaman (and later Gatchaman herself), the alias was all but dropped.

In meetings and group discussions, Rui is a wallflower, hiding in a corner somewhere, saying very little, however she will always intervene when something comes up that contradicts her beliefs.

She holds strong, extremist views and things that while the world is corrupt, humanity can save it if they work together. She sees the use of GALAX to hold people accountable and destroy their lives and livelihoods when they do the wrong thing to be an acceptable use of social media, believing they should own up to their mistakes. She believes in having everyone watch everyone's actions, holding people accountable and encouraging everyone to make up for any shortfall. She sees herself as an impartial arbiter who is not able to be corrupted as she has everyone's best interests at heart. Some of these views are tempered when GALAX and X are stolen from her, instead changing her mind to allow everyone to follow their own paths - and her encounter with the prime minister made her rethink that perhaps destroying people over every mistake is not the best idea, especially considering it was very much her turn.

She believes people are inherently good and that if everyone has the power to enact change they will, and that those who would take advantage of the system would be brought to heel by the system. Rui still believes that she only wants the best for the world and she thinks everyone can pitch in, evolve and update the world to something for the better.

Outside of this, she believes in freedom of thought and expression. Despite being the frequent target of online hate, and through her connection to Hajime, she learns to ignore that. She has always been a free thinker and she believes that people need to make their own decisions. She believes in individualism and everyone having a voice and that those voices will bring about positive change in the world.

Her shyness is more in full force when she's without her stylized clothes, wigs and looks like an ordinary boy. When she was outed and described as male by Hajime, she frowned slightly but didn't protest, and as such has been addressed as male ever since. She sees her circumstance of birth as something she probably cannot change even if it doesn't at all match who she is. Despite them being teammates, Rui is not terribly close to any of them, preferring the company of her A.I. She, like Jou, is fairly independent of the team despite working hard for them. While others frame her appearance as her disguising herself and dismissing how Rui might feel about it, when out on her own she continues to dress as female, and did even long before knowing the others or perhaps needing a disguise in the first place. Rui has amassed enough wealth that she can do as she likes and she does so, even if her gender expression winds up pushing people away from her, it matters more to her that she's comfortable.


Key themes:

Individuality: Rui is both someone who breaks the mould on acceptable behaviour and advocates for people to make their own decisions and consider their own thoughts. She believes in the power of each individual person and refuses to hold superheroes on a pedestal, despite later becoming one. She cautions against collectivist thinking, something that Japan is wrestling with because it's so much 'easier' to do. When the time comes to allow someone else to handle everything, she refuses that option, and as such, is considered a potentially dangerous outlier in Insight.

Personal Responsibility: Rui believes strongly that the actions of each individual can bring about collective change and as such someone who doesn't do what they should, should be held responsible. She thinks this will encourage people not to be negligent, or lazy and will watch their step when the world is watching. She walks the talk - when the flaw to CROWDS and GALAX is exposed, she stands before everyone and owns up to her mistakes, including a formal apology.

Radicalism: Rui wants to change the world and upend every system in existence because she believes they aren't working. She works behind the scenes to hold people responsible for their misdeeds through X and GALAX, including getting politicians to resign and she is attempting to supplant all social services with GALAX believing that each person can contribute more than a few on the top rung.

Main Motivation:

Extreme Ideology/Change The World: Aside from the fact that Rui holds some fairly radical views, she's completely motivated by them going to the point that to change the world, she created a social media app, got everyone to buy into it and continues to influence the behaviour of those around her to do good. She wants a society where people help each other and do good deeds without being asked, or rewarded outside of some video game points. If her games is what it will take, she is happy to make the events happen. To this extreme degree, she uses X to monitor all of Japan, as well as implies she has reach outside the country - although this is never shown. Her reach includes all security cameras, media reports, everyone's social media (since they are using her app) and X compiles data and gives it to her for review, to give or take actions. She also has rescinded CROWDS from users who ignore requests to stop using it when asked. She exerts a degree of control through social media. Her ticket out of her home life, her comfortable living situation and her wealth all come from this venture.

Skills:

Non-NOTE related skills: Rui is intelligent. She is an exceptional hacker and programmer, she consistently tries to hack into her own programs to ensure they are airtight. She speaks Japanese, English and Chinese. She's an excellent businesswoman who manages her own affairs and she programmed and relies on X.

Amnesia Effect/Amnesia Remind: Under the influence of Amnesia Effect, she can only be seen with someone who has a NOTE themselves, rendering her essentially invisible. Amnesia Remind cancels this effect.

CROWDS: Rui can share her power, and subsequently take it away, to manifest a person's will as an avatar in the real world. While it's used through an app she created in world, the app is not necessary - it just gave her a reach to people she couldn't see. She can summon her own and draw it out of others when they are in proximity to her. This does not render the person unconscious like one might assume, but allows them to act with what is essentially a clone of them despite the digital looking form. The avatars don't have much strength but they can teleport to other areas through projection.

Teleportation: Outside of her Gatchaman suit, she's able to teleport to places in danger along with her CROWDS avatar, although no one else she gifts the power to can, only their avatar.

Magical Girl Transformation: Although her outfit looks closer to a Gundam than a magical girl outfit, it is in fact a magical girl transformation. She holds her note in one hand and says "Bird, Go", and she appears in her suit. Although it's metal and robotic looking, she is no bigger than she was in the first place.

Gatchaman Teleportation: She can teleport short distances easily and with the ring on her back she can teleport her allies to the fight as well. A longer distance requires an electric connection, and Rui will use X to hack into their phones and call every phone in the area until one picks up. She'll appear then with a burst of electricity and be able to teleport her companions. While phones are her method of choice she can teleport any distance through any electrical device, as long as she knows it's there, which is what makes the phones more popular. She can hack into a cell network to do it.

X Saucer: A small circular device normally on the hip of her Gatchaman can be held out in front of one hand and it will spin, sending electric attacks at those she's fighting.

Digitize: An area of effect attack that send electricity about in a fairly small radius, perhaps ten feet.

Item: Her purple NOTE.

Sample:

Sometimes, she didn't feel like she fit in.

That was a lie. Often she didn't feel like she fit in, but in this case, wasn't she supposed to fit in with the Gatchaman?

And her, the new member, who thought she could do whatever she wanted without consequence. Rui had asked her to stay away and she refused. She had been trying to make a point. She wanted Rizumu to understand that people were good, and that she hadn't been reckless, that there was hope for a better world if he would just listen to her. Rui was trying to make him see that by trusting him, she believed in him. That he could be good and give up on VAPE but Tsubasa ruined it with her interference.

It was exhausting.

Rui had been willing to die, if that was what it took to prove the point, but Tsubasa hadn't let that come to pass. She interfered, Rizumu was arrested and her damaged note returned to her. She swallowed, she felt like she didn't even want it.

The meeting had been the worst, though, with Tsubasa spouting nonsense about how awful CROWDS was, taking his side, Jou in agreement and trying to run an alien who had no understanding to be their leader. Her protests had fallen on deaf ears. She'd fallen silent and sullen as they discussed dismantling her life's work, and prohibiting her powers when she knew they could still benefit people. Didn't they know what they were asking of her?

Maybe, her mind whispered, Rizumu was a little right. Rui wasn't ready to give up the powers she had, but she was absolutely sure they were for the better.

Her chest ached.

Utsutsu had done what she could, but the damage was extensive. Her NOTE still bore a mark for now while Rui was curled up in bed, useless to stop whatever was coming and feeling rather impotent. No internal injuries could hurt more than the fact that these people who were meant to be allies, comrades and possibly friends were chomping at the bit to cast her aside.

It had been a long time but Rui knew that X was her only friend, she didn't know why she'd forgotten that.


Also, test drive, sorta


Notes: I'm sorry. The Wiki is a dumpster fire. This was not a popular series.