成歩堂 龍ノ介 (Ryūnosuke Naruhodō)

OOC INFORMATION
Player Name: Possum
Pronoun Preferences: She/Her or They/Them are both fine!
Contact: awkwardpossum
Are you over the age of 18?: Yes
Invitation Link: N/A
Current Characters: Elan Ceres (No. 5)
Link to Permissions: Current player

IC INFORMATION
Character Name: Ryunosuke Naruhodo
Species: Just a regular ol' human.
Canon: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Canon Point: Post TGAA2
Character Age: 23
CRAU: No
CRAU Explanation: N/A
Character Appearance: Here's a whole gallery on the AA wiki
Powers and Abilities: N/A, he's as normal as normal gets.
What Did Your Character Wish For? Something unfortunately vague and kind of intangible about wishing he could somehow still be with his London family while also fulfilling his duties back in Japan.
What Potion Did They Receive? Golden potion
Did They Drink It? Yes, he has worryingly little self preservation when it comes to eating/drinking things (ask me about the time he almost drank a bottle of water out of the court record that was suspected of being poisoned). Due to his canonpoint being updated from the last time I apped him in, I've decided this time the gold potion will grant him the form of a (small, not OP) eastern style dragon. Kind of an upgrade that's symbolic of his increased confidence and successful self-actualization.

Character Questions:
1. Who is the person your character is most bonded with from their canon, or who is someone they miss the most and why?
Formerly the answer to this question was his best friend Kazuma, but it's abundantly clear by the end of the second game that Ryunosuke never really knew Kazuma the way he thought he did, and the story concludes with him VERY aware of that fact. Though their friendship remains intact, there's something of a rift that they'll need to overcome.
In contrast, Ryunosuke has grown incredibly close to his judicial assistant, Susato Mikotoba. When Ryunosuke first stepped up to the plate to take on Kazuma's role as a visiting law student, Susato was the one to give him a crash course in English law. They mourned their mutual friend together, and they both made a promise to see through his dream of reforming Japan's legal system. Once they arrived in Britain, the two of them faced down the horrors of Victorian Englis xenophobia and sinister government conspiracies, solving mysteries and supporting one another emotionally while they were both so very far from home. As a result they both grew an incredible amount over the coming months, bringing out the absolute best in one another.
By the end of the games, Susato is faced with a choice: remain in London with Kazuma and serve as his judicial assistant, as was originally planned, or return to Japan with Ryunosuke and continue to work with him. She chooses the latter, and he is both humbled and overjoyed.

2. What are they most afraid of and why?
Allegedly his phobias include heights and the dark. But speaking more existentially, he has a lot of looming anxiety from the pressure he feels heading back to Japan, having been tapped to use his experiences abroad to help reform the judicial system there. He's far more confident now, and he readily volunteered for the task, but there's still a lot riding on his work and a lot that he could horribly fuck up. Like, realistically? He's just a guy who went to London for a few months, and he wasn't even a law student when he left his home country. Now he's supposed to go back and help overhaul an entire system of government? That's a whole lot of pressure and he knows it.
He's also extremely afraid of ghosts and the supernatural, for some reason? There's no real explanation for this, it's just an odd quirk of his. He apparently reads a lot of dubious magazines about "strange phenomena" in his spare time, and is easily spooked by the macabre.

3. What are their emotional, mental, and physical weaknesses and why?
He's a comically ignorant when it comes to matters of science and technology, even by 1899 standards. When Lord Stronghart asked him if he knew much about science, he basically copped to only recently having heard of the subject for the first time. Mind you, TGAA is a fucked up canon, and during the course of the story Ryu's good friend Herlock Sholmes invents things like long-distance two-way wireless communication and fucking hologram zoom, so he's had to learn to take some pretty wild stuff in stride.
Emotionally: There are two sides to the weakness coin here. Even with all that character growth under his belt, he can still be an incredibly jittery person, and is rather high strung by nature, sometimes growing vocally anxious and flustered in the face of the unfamiliar. In addition to that, he can also be extremely stubborn, and at time his impulsivity can lead him to jump to conclusions and really dig in his heels on them. His open-book nature (see next question) also makes it hard for him to hide his true thoughts on things, which means he has a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease, despite his personal philosophy of being polite and respectful to everyone he meets.
Physically: he's a normal human man who is not really keen on exercise (and gets winded from going up two flights of stairs), plus he's only 5'6". So like... He's not exactly a heavy hitter. Very much the epitome of "HE'S JUST A GUY!"

4. What discrepancies are there between their inner self (who they feel they are) and their outer self (how they present themselves to others)?
Okay hopefully this isn't too much of a cop-out sounding answer, but Ryunosuke is a weird case where there actually isn't a ton of discrepancy. He's a very open book, heart on his sleeve kind of person. He doesn't have a huge ego or a persona that he tries to project. Maybe in time he'll start to develop one, as his job thrusts him more into the public eye, but for now he just... Is. There's a running gag in-game where people constantly seem to be reading his thoughts because he's so damn expressive, he's practically always broadcasting his opinions on things without even realizing it. He has a tendency towards being honest to a fault, and this seems to extend all the way to how he presents himself to others.

5. What would make them happiest and why?
Ryunosuke desperately wishes he could spend more time with his friends and found family back in London. He did willingly leave them, accepting Yujin Mikotoba's request for him to return to Tokyo so that he could put his newfound knowledge to work in improving Japan's judicial system. However, there was very little time to adjust or say goodbye to anyone before they leave. While Ryunosuke was only in London for a little under a year, he underwent an incredible amount of change in those months, and through those changes he grew extremely close with his flatmates Iris Wilson and Herlock Sholmes. He even comes to see the former as a younger sister of sorts, and she mutually views him as an older brother. By the end of the game he literally refers to them as his "family" in the text, and it clearly pains him to have to leave, even if it is ultimately the right thing for him to do.
He would also probably be pretty happy if things could go back to being less complicated between him and Kazuma, but I think he knows that's sort of a mixed-bag and unrealistic kind of desire, since he certainly doesn't regret any of the actions that led to them butting heads in the first place.

6. What characteristics does someone need to have to be your character's ideal significant other?
If asked, he would claim that he hasn't exactly given it much thought, and that he's not much of a romantic... But what he needs and would prefer, ultimately, is someone who is level-headed and dependable, who is willing to stay at his side in a partnership where they support each other through life's many trials (judicial pun intended). Throughout the game he doesn't seem to ever express much attraction to anyone or speak much on the subject of romance, but he does bond very deeply the people who enter his life, and he seems to respond most positively to people who are passionate and driven, with a strong sense of conviction.

7. Would your character make a sacrifice to save someone else and why or why not?
Yes, he absolutely would. He's a defense attorney through and through, he has a natural inclination towards protecting people, even if it's a job that causes him an immense amount of stress sometimes.
It is worth noting that as an attorney, he does feel his primary duty is to The Truth over the benefit of any lone individual... And sometimes his commitment to that principle can harm the very people he's supposed to be defending. But he doesn't discriminate in his methods, and he has in fact selflessly damaged his own career and reputation in order to help his clients. See the resolution to case 1-5, "The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story", when he was defending Gina Lestrade. His actions there secured an acquittal for his client, but it came at the cost of his being able to practice law for several months. And that result was honestly best-case scenario; it was stated that he could even be stripped of the right permanently, and been deported back to Japan in shame... But he still went ahead with that defense anyway.
His canon and setting haven't really ever put him in a position where he's had to physically defend someone from harm, but if push came to shove he would also absolutely tank an injury or even put his life at risk to protect someone he cared about.

8. What is one thing they would tell their younger self if they had the chance, or if your character is young, what is one thing they would want their older self to remember?
Current self to older self: even if people hurt or betray you, you must never forget to have faith in others. Trust is the most important weapon an attorney wields, and you need to believe in your client in order for them to trust and have faith in you.
The old Ace Attorney standby; in TGAA, this is something that Kazuma once taught Ryunosuke, and he's kept it close to his heart ever since.

9. When in dire circumstances does your character fight, flee, freeze or fawn and how does that look?
It really depends on the type of dire circumstance; like most people, there are scenarios where he might do any one of the four. The two he's absolutely the most prone to though, are freeze and fight. Freeze was actually kind of his trademark for a while, early on in his story. He would tense up and get all sweaty, his pupils would contract and his eyes would dart around in a frenetic way that, when you rolled all of that together, made him look EXTREMELY suspicious.
Now that he's built up more confidence in himself, he doesn't back down quite so easily. Even when going head to head against people who used to intimidate him, he's able to stick to his principles and fight back with passion.
...Of course, this is with regards to verbal conflict. In a more physical altercation he's more likely to flee or fawn, which we see when he's investigating a crime scene and someone physically intimidating or threatening shows up. He's really not a violent guy, he knows his limits and he knows how to pick his battles.

10. Why did your character make the wish they did?
Post-canon, though Ryunosuke is heading off into a hopeful and bright future, full of newfound confidence and resolve... There's still a lot of uncertainty on the path ahead, and there are bound to be hard times as well. In some ways, he's stronger than ever, but he's also never been more vulnerable. When it became clear he was the ONLY guy who could take on the job he's heading back to do, there was very little to deliberate over: he had to answer the call. But that came at the cost of physical proximity to people who he holds very dear, who helped him grow into the lawyer he's become by the end of the tale. It's a sacrifice he has to make, a necessary one; one that isn't the end of the world or anything, but is still bittersweet, and a little bit painful. It's 1899, travel between Japan and England takes weeks, as does most forms of long-distance communication, unless you can shell out for an expensive telegram. The barrier of distance is far more impermeable.

Samples:
Log Sample (I have plenty of other longer ones if needed)
Network Sample (aka thing he's going to be extremely embarrassed to look back on if he gets back into the game)