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[precocity]

Character Name: Orihara Izaya
Canon: Durarara!
Canon Point: Post-novel "A Standing Ovation with Izaya Orihara"
Character Age: 27
History: Wiki. tl'dr: infobroker with enough issues to keep a myriad of therapists occupied, after losing a fight against his long term rival, nearly dying, and pissing off everyone under the sun, he left Ikebukuro and has been drifting around Japan solving crimes. Or being involved in crimes, it's a little questionable at times, but he has basically decided to continue observing humans and being an infobroker since that is his passion.

Division: Support; Diplomatic/Strategy Issues. While Izaya has healed from his fight with Shizuo, his arms are weaker than they used to be, and he can't walk. This has been stated to be canonically psychosomatic, and that he could walk and run like he used to if he worked at it but it initially limits him from leaving the ship and exploring alone.

Additionally, he has always had a penchant for manipulation and setting up things from the shadows, Izaya doing diplomatic things would be hilarious because he is such a hit/miss. He is either tolerable or you want to kill him on sight, there seems to be no in-between.

Edict: MALFUNCTION VII for those that crave knowledge; plaguing Izaya throughout his life, the terrible allure of knowledge from an edict like MALFUNCTION VII touches on all aspects of his person. Whether this edict sprung from a chatbot gaining sentience, a robotic concept of pain that broke free or a droid-appliance rebelling, Izaya is intimately familiar with all these having spent time using two laptops to talk to himself in a chatroom, as well as spending copious amounts of time on the internet and being connected through digital means to others. And all of this was done in the pursuit of knowledge, which Izaya claims is all he is good for.

Information gathering is more than just a job, it's Izaya's passion, and something he could continue doing forever. The consequences of gaining that information and then sharing it doesn't matter, what matters is that he will stop at nothing to find knowledge; there has never been a line he hasn't wanted to cross in order to obtain it.

While Izaya does not believe in souls, god, and the afterlife, he hopes that life after death is still possible. And what is MALFUNCTION VII if not a sign of something that endures in the nothingness?

Powers: n/a

As the Ascendants deemed your character worthy of being on this exploration voyage, what qualities did they observe in your character that they found appropriate for the mission?

Izaya prides himself of being someone who is useful and that gives people a reason to keep him around, even though he is well-aware that he is not a likable person. When it comes to situations, Izaya is able to roll with almost anything thrown his way. When kidnapped by a gang he simply laughed and declared they were all so cute for trying to harm him.

While he's not a well-polished diplomat he would be willing to roll and engage with whatever strangeness is thrown in his face, which perhaps makes him a good meeting point for new worlds. Also, this man caused so much trouble in Ikebukuro; small-scale wars, kidnapping, yakuza shenanigans, police investigations, stabbings...if it was shady, Izaya was involved nine times out of ten. He has an eye for strategy (and more importantly, escalation of situations).

Izaya is a chaotic being possessing extremely high empathy but suffering extreme difficulty in connecting. He is able to understand how and why people act, and that's it. He can't get people to like him or connect with them, which is largely intentional in order to protect himself. Then, if he can't connect to his beloved humans, maybe there are people across the universe and multi-verses he could find some sort of kindship with.

What is your character's best quality, what is their worst, and how do these two qualities affect each other?

Izaya considers his information gathering to be the only good quality he possesses, and he will stop at nothing to gain more information because even if he knows the consequences are going to be bad, they are worth the satisfaction of simply knowing. That is both his best quality and feeds into the very long list of 'bad' qualities that are part of him.

While Izaya may have any information at his fingertips, he usually uses it to escalate conflict and push forward certain agendas. Throughout the series, everything that happens can be linked back to Izaya being the one to get the ball rolling or to push things here and there. However, Izaya doesn't work for a particular outcome, whatever happens in the end doesn't matter to him as long as he is entertained. Whatever 'entertained' means to him at any given time changes. In the novels, after his defeat in Ikebukuro, he uses his info broker skills to uncover corruption, and turn the tables on those who try to harm him.

However, this doesn't make him a good guy—because the truth doesn't fix things; sometimes the truth makes things worse. Izaya is well aware of this, and seems to always ot for the truth about a situation, but he always avoids the truth about himself and his loneliness. He strongly believes that what people do with the information he gives them is up to them, but he is happy to give a little here and there.

But—maybe a bit cliched—what could be considered to be Izaya's greatest weakness is his frailty. Everything he has done, everything he is has been done in order to keep people out, if people don't know the real him, if people don't get close to him then they can't break his heart. In the novels, Shinra notes that: People think of him like some cold-blooded monster, but he's more human than anyone I know; he's so fragile inside. If you pumped him full of love and betrayal and such, I think he'd fall apart. I think that's why he decided to love humanity by letting everything wash over him. Do you see what I'm saying? He accepts everything, but he doesn't take it in. He lets it wash over him.

Which doesn't really excuse him being an absolute unstable danger to society but it does explain a few things.

Your character's Edict appears in front of them, and agrees to grant them one wish: what does your character wish for? Izaya's pathologies are a little warped. Wouldn't it be nice if he could just get what he wanted with a simple wish? But, he is not someone who would be tempted by a wish, as he is well aware of the lessons imparted by the tale of the Monkey's Paw. He is someone who wouldn't be satisfied with simply being given something without effort to get it, at the end of the second spin-off novel, Izaya reveals that what he years for the most is someone to stand by his side, an equal. Someone who would stand up and clap in ovation, but that he knows this is an impossibility due to his life or choices as Izaya Orihara.

So, Izaya wouldn't use the wish on himself, so there are two possibilities from here. One, he wants to see what someone else would wish for and so would let someone else have his wish or, more deeply and with a lot more conflict, he may wish to erase himself from his past. No Ikebukuro to haunt him. This choice is less to do with regret and more to a form of atonement for his misjudgement of Shizuo in Ikebukuro-he is still very much traumatised by Shizuo and dislikes him, but he certainly believes he judged the other unfairly and that Shizuo is human.

The Theorem has broken down, and is drifting toward a black hole. There is very little hope of outside rescue. What does your character do?

Izaya would be the most useless individual in this sort of situation because, while he is scared of dying and doesn't believe in an afterlife (despite hoping there is one), he would observe. His curiosity would get the most of thing because he is someone who finds the unknown fun, even if he may pretend otherwise for the benefit of an audience. Izaya would be curious to know what will happen, if there is death or life or what.

However, as the ship is headed towards a black hole, he would find a comfortable place to perch and watch everyone else's reactions. He would love to be able to confirm or disprove his theories about the people around him, and he would want to push them into despair or hope or some other extreme emotion that causes a fundamental change in the person. Yeah, he really isn't a nice person.

Inside he is probably dealing with some existential crisis and ignoring it, fear of death and a mixture of anticipation and anxiety for the unknown. But he really is bad at looking at his own issues, and he is resigned to be alone for the rest of his life so it's not like he would allow himself to be vulnerable and confide his feelings.