Tag Archives: answers

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✾

✾ – Why I chose my character.

Oh, goodness. Great question, Tintin! By the way, you are a super cutie in case you weren’t aware. I have really enjoyed following you and hearing of your exploits via Emi.

Let’s see.  Why did I choose Hakuba, of all characters, to play? 

Backstory: 

A few years ago, I met a girl whom I’ll call Clover through a mutual friend (hi Krista!) who invited her along to one of my Conan parties. Those are basically ‘eat curry, sushi, junkfood and cookies shaped like Conan’s head while marathonning the movies/arcs/specials/etc’ all day long. 

Clover and I hit it off and started to talk online, discovered we were both RPers, and had a mutual thirst for DCMK. It was her idea for me to start RPing as Conan, which I was hella nervous about because I’d really only RPed as OCs until that point. 

BUT, with a little brainstorming, we came up with this incredibly epic plot to resolve the series once and for all, and we divvied up the characters accordingly. She picked Kaito (her favorite) as her MC, and took on the task of writing Heiji, Kogoro, the Detective Boys, Ran, Chikage, Gin, some OCs, and various other side characters etc…  while I took on Conan/Shinichi, Yukiko, Yuusaku, Sonoko, Eri, Vermouth, Vodka, Akako, Aoko, Kazuha, aaaand… Hakuba. 

The fun part of the story was that Clover, like many people, didn’t like Hakuba to begin with because he’s not only an antagonist for KID (her favorite), but also one for Hattori Heiji (whom we all adore). But, since my introduction to him was a bit different (Sunset Mansion was my very first exposure to him, followed by Koushien, then the MK cases), I saw a very different character than perhaps others did, and took on the task of engineering him to be a character that you (hopefully) can’t help but fall for. 

Hakuba, to me, is very interesting because even though he’s one of the four Gosho Boys, he has very little exposure series-wise. He’s only in DC twice and only in MK a handful of times, and we know very little about his background. We do, however, know some very specific things canonically that allows us to extrapolate a LOT of possibilities.

As a writer developing a character, this is gold. 

Here’s what we do know:

  • He’s driven and determined with concrete goals (career)
  • He’s well on his way to achieving these goals (over 500 cases in Japan alone, Scotland Yard has worked with him before and wants to again)
  • He has personal motivations that are important to him (learning a criminal’s modus operandi) 
  • He’s good at billiards
  • Seems very comfortable with adults/professionals
  • Flirtatious and chivalrous with women he doesn’t see on his level (yes, he’s sexist — it’s part of his White Knight syndrome, which I’ll go into later)
  • Has relations with the media (TV, newspaper, probably magazines, an agent)
  • He’s a proficient austringer (if Watson is, indeed, a female Eurasian Sparrowhawk, he must be one of the youngest licensed hawkers in the UK— those birds are for advanced austringers only, and you can only become one if you pass all sorts of tests… those birds are only with you on a relationship of mutual trust; if he wasn’t good, she wouldn’t stay with him for a second)
  • His father is kindly toward him, but has no problems embarrassing him in front of others (there’s the whole issue of nepotism in Japan, and it’s got to be awkward to be the son of the Superintendent General)
  • He is frustrated by Nakamori-keibu not listening to him, but is quick to make sure that Conan’s voice is heard in both cases 
  • Keeps accurate time with his watch + excessive note taking
  • Has eidetic memory 
  • Has access to his grandfather’s laboratory + seems to know how to use it
  • Travels often (London, France, Japan at the very least)
  • Has a governess who drives a fancy sports car; it’s pretty clear that he comes from money. Wears fancy suits. His idea of ‘casual clothes’ is not wearing a tie and not buttoning his jacket. 

and so on…

All of these traits appeal to me because they’re interesting problems to have to deal with in terms of getting a profile down…

  • if he hunts with a hawk, he can’t be afraid of getting his hands dirty 
  • if he’s solved so many cases, he’s not going to be skittish around blood
  • if he’s been living in England for all of these years, there must be something going on between his parents – his dad is obviously Japanese, being the Superintendent General, so what of his mother?
  • does his meticulous time-keeping habits have anything to do with the problems sometimes inherent with having an eidetic memory?
  • If he openly flirts with girls/people  unlike the other Gosho Boys, what is his experience? Is it merely cultural difference? 
  • If he’s born on August 29th, that puts him right at the deadline for the school year in the UK. That makes him the youngest of his class, and potentially the youngest of the Gosho Boys if they’re all 17. Is he used to being the smallest/not taken seriously? 
  • If his mother is British and living in England, there’s a good chance that their family is at least somewhat religious. Incorporating that into his character would be a great contrast against the others, who have their own varying Eastern religious beliefs (and not). 
  • It also counteracts (and balances) the logical detective side with things of a spiritual nature, which honestly fits with a more idealized perspective aaaand scientific theory. Since he’s “proto-Shinichi” it makes sense to me to switch him to the other side of the coin. While Shinichi says “ghosts can’t exist because we can’t prove that they do,” Hakuba says “ghosts might exist because we can’t prove that they don’t.” In this way, he pairs well with Heiji because they’re both more on the superstitious side. 

So I start getting these ideas, and I’m getting really excited. There’s a ton of material that I can work with, here, all derived from canon extrapolations. 

  • If Watson trusts him, he’s probably very good with animals
    • I’ll make him an Animal Lover as part of his introvert/social awkwardness around his peers. He always deals better with critters than people, and that’s a soft spot. 
  • If he’s, say, Catholic, it would make sense to send him to a boarding school for part of the time in England, since they are well-off and he seems very prim and proper.
    • This allows me to make plenty of biblical references in posts and view the Japanese world from a Christian perspective (which works for me because I was raised Christian and I’m only sort of familiar with Japan, so this is a good vehicle for me to explore spirituality of differing types and the fallacies therein)
    • We can also work in a bit of painful backstory here because there have been several instances of child abuse at these boarding schools, which I think could be useful to drive Hakuba’s need for understanding motive. Why did this happen to us? Why would someone do this? Why would God allow it? Why did I allow it to go so long? 
    • This also gives him secrets to keep, which is fun in RP
    • …and also more cases solved in his past as well as potential future villains.
  • Working with Scotland Yard means that he’s had a lot of opportunity to learn policy/procedure and probably get a lot of really fantastic outside world perspectives. 
    • Shinichi got to travel a lot with his parents, it seems, so Hakuba is his natural counterpart in this sense. Kaito and Heiji, however, seem bound to Japan so far… which means bringing different experiences to the Gosho Boys as a whole.

…anyway, this is just an example of the process I’ve gone through to invent this character, but I guess you could say that I really love his type of character. That is, a young teenager trying to solve adult problems while struggling with a myriad of complications, many of them stemming from his own inexperience or miscalculation. I love that he has a TON of problems just because he is who he is, and he’s busily trying to solve them ALL by himself because he feels that he has to. 

Hakuba is a walking contradiction. But in him I see potential for a funny, sensitive character who is competent, merciful, and helps to round out the team with common sense, determination, and a gentle hand. 

…like really, I think he’s the only one of the Gosho boys that is a true pacifist, which is funny. 

I hope this sort of answers the question. I guess it’s just… I really relate to him in a lot of ways, and I think I can bring a lot of insight to his character, and in a way that will not make people hate him so much.

The END!

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Tell me

Leave a “Tell Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character confessing something to yours [be it a love confession, a secret, feel free to specify.]

Taking Akira’s hand, Hakuba pulled her along the winding pathway to the hedge maze, roses abloom all around them. “Come along, Akira-kun, please…” the detective desperately pleaded, though he wondered if it was hopeless. She and Emi somehow always knew what he was planning anyway, but he had to try. 

Finally, he stopped at a covered gazebo and pulled her inside, panting, and took a seat on the bench inside. “This… this is the place, I think… where I’ll ask her if she’ll come home with me to London… Do… Do you think this will work? I mean, make the confession, ask her to come home with me? For the holidays, I mean. God, I’m so nervous!”

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Quiet Me (from crying) //｡◕‿◕｡ immacurious

Leave a “Quiet Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character trying to calm yours down [be it from crying, from lashing out, feel free to specify.]

“Hey, hey… it’s all right,” Hakuba said, offering what he thought was a charming, crooked smile to the other detective. It had been a very, very long night, and the two had worked together on the case for three days straight with so very little rest. Despite having caught the kidnapper, they hadn’t managed to get the victim out completely unscathed, but she would be all right. With time. Even so, he could understand why she’d suddenly burst into tears as the ambulance pulled away.

The male sighed, lips pursing as the crying didn’t cease, and attempted to casually put his arm around her shoulders. “Chin up, detective! We caught the culprit… things will turn out fine. Really. We did the best we could, and we did a fine job… hush, hush.”

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Haunt me.

Leave a “Haunt Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character watching over yours[as a ghost, watching from a distance, or otherwise, feel free to specify.]

It was highly unlikely, Hakuba thought, that anyone knew that he was still around. But so many things had become clear to him now that he was dead that the once-detective was not, in any way, surprised. He hadn’t been a fool to believe in ghosts while he’d lived, and now, trapped in this miserable existence, he only wished he could tell them how wrong they had been. 

Not that it would have mattered. It certainly didn’t for Janus, he thought, observing the killer’s actions day-to-day, lurking from whatever shadows he found most comfortable. The man lived like he’d been haunted all his life, why would adding another spectral spectator be any different at all? It wasn’t as if Hakuba could talk to the others, anyway… so many spirits, drifting uselessly behind the Osakan, trailing after what tastes of energy they could scrounge up, latently trying to survive.

That’s really all that they did… survive. No one had enjoyed being killed, but the damned assassin had been so good that most, Hakuba thought, hadn’t even known it was coming. Hadn’t even had enough time to be upset at being murdered, much less at whoever had done it. 

He, though… he knew exactly who had done it, though the reason still baffled him. Hadn’t they been in love? That’s what the other had said, anyway. That’s what he’d thought that ring had meant. But all of those promises meant nothing once his own blood had been washed down the drain, hadn’t it? 

Miserable… they were both miserable, caught in a constant spiral of hate and regret. Hate for themselves, hate for others. Regret for what they’d done, regret for what they hadn’t. Did it even matter? Had it all been pointless? 

Some days he thought of nothing but revenge… trying to cause his former lover pain. Perhaps, if he had, it would somehow make up for ending his life. But no… no, it really was useless. Janus was nothing but pain already, and even though he hated him with every immaterial piece of his being, he knew that, deep down, he should have seen it coming… that he’d known it would happen…

…and that he loved him, still, anyway. 

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Break me

Leave a “Break Me” in my ask, and I will write an angsty drabble about our characters.

Hakuba hefted a sigh, chin supported by his hand, elbow on the window ledge. Emi was gone. They’d done everything to save her. Everything. Risking life and limb to rescue her, tapping out all of their resources and contacts, exhausting every avenue, but they’d been too late. She was dead. Completely, utterly, inescapably lifeless and broken. 

It was hard for the detective, trying to hold back the tears and the emotions that broiled in his heart, but he had to. Akira was left having to deal with that silence, now, and though he didn’t entirely understand all of the complicated implications of this, he knew that she was hurting. He could feel that much. It was why he couldn’t even bring himself to look at her. God, it hurt. 

It hurt, it hurt, and he wondered if his heart would ever mend. He wondered if he even wanted it to. How could someone like her integrate herself into their lives only to leave? Did she know that it would tear through them with such violence? That it would do so much damage? 

He put his arm around Akira, pulling her close in an attempt to quell those little choking sobs that she was trying so hard to hold in. They still had a lot of work to do. So much to hide. So much to talk about and sort through and deal with, but neither of them wanted to move. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It’s not as though any of them were particularly new to death, even, but… but the pain had never been this personal, this fresh before. 

It didn’t feel real. 

When she responded to his touch, curling into him instead of away, Hakuba turned to her, too. He wrapped his other arm around her and rested his chin on the top of her head, like he always did with Emi, eyes closing to shut out the sterile hallway in front of the coroner’s office. 

“…what are we going to do?” he asked, voice breaking through his hoarse whisper. 

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Get Me

Leave a “Get Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about my character saving yours.

“No, really, he didn’t mean it like that at all, m’am.” Hakuba patted the Osakan’s back with a pleasant – if not completely smug – smile, head tilting in an effort to appear even more harmless and charming. “My associate here is just… well, a little bit… how to say it… Hot-blooded?" 

He knew that Heiji was fuming and probably only barely holding back a string of curses and insults, but that hardly mattered at the moment. It was far too important to save his ass, and far too amusing to get him into his debt in this way, so he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. Not in a situation like this, where the offended party just happened to be a fan of the half-british detective. Ah, sweet revenge.

"At any rate, it was a simple misunderstanding, and he’s very sorry… aren’t you, Hattori-kun?" 

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Offer me

Leave a “Offer Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character giving yours a gift.

It wasn’t much, but Hakuba found that Occam’s Razor was often just as applicable to gifts as it was to everything else, so he didn’t feel too worried about it as he set the basket down on the step on front of the bakery. He knew that the baker in question wouldn’t be around for another half hour at least, early as it was, but he hoped that she would find it before anyone else did.

Tulips, a thank-you card, and a tiny stuffed rabbit were nestled in quite comfortably in the tissue paper, only the flowers peeking out of the top. He didn’t dare give her anything edible, not when her own confections were quite simply the best around, but the rest was something she might enjoy. 

Mischief managed, the detective snuck off back toward his car, enjoying the pre-dawn light with a crooked smile. 

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Insanity, Pawns, Delirious

Insanity

Hakuba does often wonder if his paranoia borders on insanity. He has a ridiculous amount of contingencies set up in the event of his untimely demise, most of which involves delivering information about his various cases into hands that he believes are capable of handling them. Sometimes, as he writes the letters that he sets aside for this purpose, he has to stop and ask himself if he is, in fact, insane. 

Pawns

One of the reasons why my Hakuba hates the Spider that I’ve written in his backstory is that he uses a combination of white widow cocaine and a drug called scopolamine on his targets and bystanders… This allows him to produce those illusions, each tailored to a person’s individual fears (think Batman’s Scarecrow), and makes them very willing volunteers for whatever Spider wants them to do. For the criminals that he assassinates, it usually involves forcing them to play out their worst nightmare before they die. Since Hakuba’s not really a target, he’s only seen glimpses of this, but both times (especially the first), left him shattered, angry, and terrified.  

Delirious

The nightmares will sometimes have this effect. It doesn’t happen often, but the nightmares, or something will trigger his PTSD and suddenly the eidetic memory kicks in and Hakuba turns from a professional, level-headed detective to a crying mess on the floor, or scrambling to escape. Just the right combination of triggers and you can have him screaming bloody murder and stuck reliving the past until he’s snapped out of it. 

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Headcanon: love uwu

Hakuba is the type to fall quickly for many different types of people. It’s difficult for him to see just what’s going to stick, as there are so many facets of a person that are important, and he’s so very picky. Interest sparks for many, but very few go on to be flames, and fewer still turn into those long-lasting fires. 

For him to fall in love with someone, successfully, it usually has to be a slow burn. Sparks of interest here or there, stringing along until it becomes a flame, but at some point there has to be a transition between Hakuba doing the pursuing (which is how he prefers to start things), to the other person showing equal interest and dedication. 

Trust is built over time. Secrets exchanged. A healthy amount of dirty laundry on the table. Clear the air. Decide that they’re still in it, still willing, still interested. Accept him for who he is. He’ll accept them for who they are. And then it becomes a mutual partnership. Friends, lovers, soulmates. He hopes for marriage. And then sharing his life – all of it – with whomever becomes his mate. 

Ideally, anyway. He’s ridiculously compatible with a lot of people, but rarely gives anyone a fair chance… too busy self-loathing and being defensive to, I guess. Ugh. 

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Torture hehehe :3

Headcanon for keyword: Torture

In Hakuba’s line of work, it’s often romanticized that detectives are kidnapped and tortured for information. Mostly, though, their work is a bunch of research and paper trails. There are confrontations, yes, which occasionally get violent, but they are not super spies like James Bond, nor are most detectives like Batman. 

That said, being a super high school level genius detective comes with a certain sort of territory that brings out some of the worst, especially for one who is more a private consultant than a legitimate member of the police force. There have been a couple of times where Hakuba has found himself in a situation where criminals have tried to get information from him, one way or the other. 

Terrified of this happening, Hakuba researched various methods to cope, which have actually come in handy. One of the things that criminals like to use is truth serums or other drugs, which Hakuba knows (from research) works by making the person feel compelled to talk. It’s not so much about truth as it is the culprit providing the topic, and the victim having to speak on said topic, which usually results in them spilling the information. So, Hakuba has invented several scenarios and speeches or reports, if you will, to give falsified or otherwise useless information readily enough that it confuses your captors.

I mean, this usually means getting beat up more… but at least the information is safe. He’s way more concerned about taking the secrets to the grave, though, so that’s something.