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The Basics
Canon: Danganronpa
Character Name: Chiaki Nanami
Character Journal:

lullabytes
Player Name: Lucy
Best contact method:

lucylovespluto

Character Details
Canon Point: Danganronpa 2, End of Chapter 5
Species: Human (AI)
Timeline of Important Events in Canon History:

The New World program and the two AIs who were to inhabit and run the program were created by Chihiro Fujisaki, Miaya Gekkougahara, and Yasuke Matsuda; this took place sometime during their school years together. Nanami was one of the two AIs, though she did not have her name or appearance at that time.
The world ended and stuff with Despair taking over the world; also, Dangonronpa 1 occurs during which Chihiro Fujisaki dies.
Makoto Naegi and the other Danganronpa 1 survivors round up the remnants of SHSL Despair and take them to Jabberwock island, where they are put into the New World Program (virtual reality therapy program). The AI known as Chiaki Nanami takes her name and form at this time.
The planned run of the program - revert the SHSL Despair members to their memories before they started Hope's Peak and make new school memories - is interrupted by a virus introduced by one of the Despair. The virus causes Monokuma to take over the program in Usami's place, and the School Trip of Mutual Killing begins.
Teruteru Hanamura kills the SHSL Imposter and is executed following a class trial.
The first motive is given: the game "Twilight Syndrome" which incites Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu to confront Mahiru Koizumi.
Peko Pekoyama kills Mahiru Koizumi and is executed following a class trial. Also Kuzuryuu loses an eye.
The next motive is given out: an illness that has random effects on everyone. Mikan Tsumiki recovers her memories thanks to the illness and kills Ibuki Mioda and Hiyoko Saionji. She is executed following a class trial.
The next motive consists of locking the remaining students in the funhouse found in the amusement park on the island and informing them they get nothing to eat until someone kills.
Gundam Tanaka kills Nidai Nekomaru after two days and is executed following a class trial.
Nagito Komaeda had learned about a "traitor" who was not SHSL Despair during the previous investigation and becomes obsessed with learning their identity. He sets up a plan to allow the traitor to be the sole survivor by virtue of relying on his luck to force them to kill him and make it impossible to prove who killed him.
Nanami reveals herself as the "traitor" in order to save the five remaining students and is executed alongside her sister program Monomi following the class trial.

Personality:

Nanami's motivations are simple and sincere: everything she does (aside from, like, playing video games on her own time) is driven by what she is. A sincere, hard-working AI created for therapeutic purposes. She always wants to help, to protect those dear to her and to support them as they move forward, always understanding in-game that it was not her role to leave with them when they eventually did reach the future...even if she hadn't been executed. Every decision made in any seriousness takes into account her friends and family, and she will every single time choose any of them over herself without hesitation. She is not a selfish person by nature.

The first impression most people would get of Chiaki Nanami is that she's a bit slow - the sort of person who takes things at her own pace, unhurried and a tad disconnected from things like urgency. There's a decidedly sleepy quality to her disposition and way of speaking, which admittedly is helped along by the fact that she frequently puts her gaming before sleep. More than that, though, it's honestly true that Nanami does things at her own speed, and that speed tends to be cautious and careful and frequently causes her game's main character to make remarks about Nanami's pacing and sense of time (admittedly she does fall asleep during conversations with Hinata a perfectly silly amount, so he's entitled). It's hard to rush Nanami along if she doesn't feel like being rushed, and she doesn't seem to have any problems putting something off for something else she'd prefer to do. At one point Hinata has to remind her to go to a group meeting, since she was getting in some gaming time before hand, which was a terrific example of excellent priorities at work.

This impression isn't helped by Nanami's conversational skills, which tend to involve frequent pauses. She gets better about it as she gets to know someone, but there are a lot of pauses in what she says, even so (or, rather, "..."s). In her very first meeting with Hinata, she told him this was because if she didn't take the time to compose everything she wanted to say in her head, it was hard for her to speak to people (although she added that it would probably get faster as she got to know people). Even when she's speaking at a more normal speed without the mental composition outtakes, Nanami's confused remarks and asides about games that pretty much no one else in her class had played tend to make her hard to follow for most of the people she spoke to. Part of the problem there was that she rarely starts out a remark about a game with the actual title, but instead makes circular remarks about the games based on events or fighting systems, or "this is like the game where x". The context often has to be dragged out of her, although she doesn't appear to be trying to make herself hard to understand or anything of the sort - it just doesn't seem to occur to Nanami that people might not have the context they need to understand all her references. Since she's astounded to find that Tsumiki has never played a game before ("that's like wasting 90% of your life"), this is probably a fair assessment of what's going on.

While her friends seem to eventually accept this as sort of par for the course, Hinata's narration often comments on wondering why Nanami is the way she is (particularly in her free time events, he wonders about her childhood) and continued bafflement about her reactions and way of looking at things. And admittedly knowing about her childhood does sort of shed some light on Nanami's quirks. As is eventually learned in the final chapters of Super Dangan Ronpa, the kids are not actually on an Island, but were instead in a virtual reality game. And instead of being one of the students hooked up to the game, Nanami herself was part of the game. The Super High-school Level Gamer was actually a Super High-school Level NPC, put in the island field trip as a monitor with her counterpart, the field trip's teacher, Usami (later Monomi). With that information, her slight strangeness makes a lot more sense - of course Nanami has gaps in her knowledge of normal everyday things, and of course she's a little ill at ease with real live humans, her very first. It's like a giant ah-hah moment, really.

Here it should be noted that Nanami's design, made by Chihiro Fujisaki in his school days with the assistance of the SHSL Therapist and SHSL Neurologist, was something of a blank slate. While Usami's form was set, the second observer for what was originally intended to be a therapy program was meant to draw their form from the desires and memories of those put into the program. In Nanami's case, her first use in real time allowed her to draw her form and base personality from the memories of her classmates. The person they wanted to see was their own classmate who had died, the original Chiaki Nanami. While she is based off of and looks like Nanami, and while their personalities are very similar, the two Nanamis have entirely different bases of experience and memory. There are also certain differences in personality. While the original Nanami was a little lethargic, for example, she never took it to the extent that AI Nanami does. And the original Nanami had to be encouraged into being far more proactive, while as an AI dedicated to assisting the people in the New World program, AI Nanami has always been more active in helping others and interacting with them, even if she can interact at times awkwardly. Furthermore, the "real" Nanami didn't seem to like her talent and seemed to consider it useless; AI Nanami, however, seems to love her talent and doesn't see talents as that important from the start, while the original Nanami had to be led to that conclusion.

It is her nature as an AI and the fact that her first real use is this running of the New World Program (read: the entire second game) that explains a lot of Nanami's naivete. She has childish qualities, such as terrible little-girl handwriting and a lack of knowledge about certain things all girls her age in Japan would be expected to know about. She's not even aware that milk comes from cows, or how it comes from them, at first. Despite this lack of knowledge, in many other ways Nanami comes across as very mature for her age in a strange sort of duality. She alone of the kids is aware of what the outside world is like, at first, and she is fully aware of what sort of people her classmates once were. Regardless of the things they'd done - and at the time, the people who put the New World program into action were unaware that brainwashing was totally a thing - Nanami's classmates are extremely important to her, to the point where she defied her programming as much as she was able to reveal her role and protect those who were left, even though it led to her death. Beyond her classmates Nanami considers her sister, Usami, to be important. She also thinks of Alter Ego as her elder brother, and refers to Chihiro as her father. It is likely that she has similar family feelings towards the SHSL Therapist and SHSL Neurologist, or at least that she would listen to their words in the event she ever met them again.

Further assisting the sleepy-slow image is Nanami's genuinely cool head. She's calm in most situations she's put in, and is one of the characters who has an easier time staying focused on the school trials, not often going off on tangents (surprisingly, almost; she makes next to no side remarks about games and never really gets stuck on a point that doesn't have anything to do with anything, or which is obviously false). Nanami isn't easily excitable when it's not related to video games, and thus proves to be a really reliable ally for Hinata in that sense, since...well, there are a lot of excitable characters in Super Dangan Ronpa 2. A lot. While new events and announcements often caused chaos amongst the students, Nanami was usually calm about them, and would either gently suggest a next step or just make a casual remark that gave her mental state as being Not That Worked Up. Even when upset, Nanami rarely does anything particularly rash. At one point her games are blown up (...Komaeda tries to scare the kids, and sets off a bomb near where her games were kept in the lodge) and Nanami doesn't do anything more than sadly stare at them the next day.

While it initially seems that Nanami isn't passionate or firm about much besides games, this simply isn't true. She actually gets fired up when she states that she won't ever stand for any mutual killing, and Nanami is always quite clear and straightforward about her dislike for the mutual killing game, and how she wants everyone to get through it together. When necessary, Nanami proves capable of speaking up without taking the time to think it through, and she can be direct and firm as the situation calls for it. She's the first one to ask Komaeda to shut up when he goes off on a rant about hope and despair in a trial (she asks politely, but it's still pretty jarring when the usually calm and go-with-the-flow Nanami tells Komaeda to knock it off). She's the one who slaps Owari when the other girl tries to strangle Komaeda, bringing her to her senses and pointing out that Owari isn't that sort of person.

Monomi remarks that Nanami is a very kind person ("Who do you think you get that from?") and this is in fact true. While Nanami doesn't think of herself as being overly good with living things, she's clearly fond of her classmates, and clearly wants them to do well and survive. She doesn't seem to have a bad opinion of any of them, going so far as to tell the others not to speak badly of Komaeda after he masterminded a situation that led to her unknowingly murdering him in an attempt to off all the non-traitor kids. Even with that situation, knowing she was going to die because of him, Nanami said the others shouldn't speak badly of Komaeda, and that in a different situation he wouldn't have acted as he did. Holding things against people doesn't seem to be much in Nanami's nature, outside of her obvious dislike and distrust of Monokuma, who began the mutual school killings on the island.

Abilities, Magic and Supernatural Skills/Afflictions: As the SHSL Gamer, Nanami is an expert in gaming (although she notably has a problem with dating games, as in she...isn't great with them); she has a stupidly large store of gaming related trivia, and seems capable of breezing through nearly any video game given to her. This will pretty much only help her insofar as the magic system seems like it could have come from an rpg, and Nanami feels comfortable with almost anything that feels like it could have come from an rpg. Nanami also displays a high level of genre-savvyness, so long as she's played games that connect to whatever situation she's been thrown into - although if the game genre-savvyness isn't correct, this is more detrimental than it wouldn't be.

Dragon & Magical Element
Elemental Alignment:

Water

Light

Earth

Dragon:

A delicate-looking dragon that nevertheless will grow to Large adult size. She has two taloned legs and two wings. She's covered in a mix of scales and feathers, with scales more on the torso portion, and is colored in purples and pinks. Her mouth is somewhat more like a beak than it isn't, and there are head-feather ruffles that look graceful probably. Flight-capable. Deep red or pink eyes, half-lidded. Eats lots of fruits and plants but also fish. The egg is whorled with purples and white frost, and ostrich-sized. Here is a sketch by knittybitty. Some of the coloring/details might change depending on element, but the shape and size is all settled.

Personality traits inherited from Character Bond:

Lethargy.

Kindness.

A fondness for games.

Writing Samples
First Sample: Here is a musebox thread with another applicant.
Second Sample:

heeding the call
[ this was not what nanami had expected to come next. if she had expected anything - which she hadn't, really, not knowing if her brother could save her code from the virus upon her execution - it would not have been what she'd found herself called to. it's not impossible that this is still the new world program, but something makes nanami think that isn't the case. her brother's tastes don't tend towards the fantastic, nor do any of those in the future foundation...at least, not like this. nanami herself thinks it looks like a video game she might play, but it certainly isn't one she's ever played for certain. she barely hears the chatter of the natives - she cannot think of them as npcs when she herself is among that number, can she? - because of the sense she should be doing something else, but nanami is nothing if not polite and thanks those who give her clothes and money (gold, so it's a game currency she must learn) before she wanders on her way.

the others who seem just as new as her seem to feel a similar longing to do Something. usami isn't around, even though nanami had been holding her sister's hand before she'd found herself here (nuren, her memory supplies, having grabbed at least that from the natives speech). somehow that doesn't seem to be the most important thing just now, however.

she barely remembers how she reached the cavern. there was walking, a lot of it, and her new boots are wearing oddly against her feet and nanami thinks maybe she'll have blisters. it's a weird thought, because she's never had them before, but video game characters have complained about them before. she empathizes with them in a way she had not previously, having never really had her feet hurt or wear at the edges. the pain is in the back of her mind and ignored and then washed away in a feeling of sudden easy safety as she pauses at one of the entrances, staring up at the ceiling of the cavern and letting herself be jostled to the side by less slow members of the new scions.

nanami holds close to the edge of the cavern, still taking it in from where she's paused. there are strange runes all over the floor, circles of them around depressions of all sizes. some other people are kneeling next to certain rune-circles. she can see things in them. eggs? it doesn't seem too important. at least, those circles don't seem important...

that one. there. that one does seem important. nanami walks towards the one that seems Important, drawn to it like a sleepwalker, perhaps, and she passes through the runes around a depression maybe five feet wide without thinking about it. at the center is a rather large egg (ostrich-sized, though that isn't trivia nanami would have) that is patterned in strange, whimsical whorls of purple and white frost. it's warm to the touch, and she realizes then that the ground she's kneeling on is also warm, like the cavern is a living thing. a beating heart.

the slightest brush of her fingertips causes a crack on the surface of that eggshell, and nanami draws back her hand immediately, eyes widening. she doesn't know enough about real animals or real eggs to know if she's done irreparable damage. tanaka would know, but he's not here, so she's left to watch in spellbound awe and terror all alone. she has never seen anything be born before, not anything real outside of a game, and this is way, way different from a poke-egg hatching. there's no cheery tune or a flashing screen. there's just an indeterminate amount of time from the first crack to the creature within finally struggling out of the shell entirely as nanami remains frozen, uncertain if she would help or hinder by trying to move any of the shell out of the way.

and then there is a dragon, small as a kitten, and she's not exactly certain what to do. there's no hinata to tell her it's all right to lay her hand against it, like with cows. there's no tanaka to tell her what it needs. there's no usami to power through it with a teacher's bluster.

but there is a baby dragon to tumble out of the egg and butt up against nanami's frozen hand, outstretched but not touching. ]

Oh. [ oh, it's a baby, and she doesn't know what to do? what do you do with babies? no one ever actually told her. what you do in pokemon is...name them. you name them, right.

...and maybe you pick them up and put them in your lap, as gently as you know how. but then a name. what name? ]

There are lots...of pretty neat dragons I know. [ she "knows", like she's met them, like they're not all video game characters - but she's sort of that, too, right? they're all as real as she is. ] Yoshi...Fangora...Nevis...Siria...Hewdraw...

[ they're sleepily half-whispered names as she tries to help the little bird-dragon clean itself. herself. nanami thinks this is a girl. maybe? she's not sure why she thinks so, but she decides not to question it. ]

Bleu, Landia, Hooktail...

[ perhaps she should pick a name that comes from nowhere, so it's not a legacy, but nanami herself is named like a legacy. and she doesn't know where else she'd get a name, otherwise. ]

Umm... [ the dragon nibbles on her fingers. she doesn't seem to care about nanami's predicament, but nanami supposes that's fair since she was just born and it's not her job to name herself. ] ...Landia?

[ there's no approval or agreement. just more finger nibbling. ]

Landia is...the guardian of the planet, you know. It has four heads, and it tries really hard...and even though it set things in motion, I think...a guardian is a pretty respectable namesake. Don't you think...? Being named for someone who did their best, no matter what...is probably a good thing. So...in that case, that should do. Ah, but...is it really fine with me...?

[ ...there's no more finger nibbling. now there's just. sleeping on her lap. okay. ]

...All right, then. Landia. We should find the next quest. For now, we're party members, okay? I promise I'll do my best, so...you, too.

[ the sleeping hatchling isn't listening, but nanami will gather up the dragon and the eggshell, after a moment, before meandering away. she's not alone any longer, so things should be okay. right? ]

30 Day Opt-In
In the 30 days that your character has been in the city, how have they spent their time? Chiaki has mostly been learning the lay of the land and asking a lot of questions. She's also tried to find "side quests". Since she's been discouraged from leaving the city, however, Chiaki has mostly assumed that she hasn't triggered the appropriate side quest chain to unlock the next area. ...or that's how she put it, anyway.

Has the dragon hatched yet? Did their egg hatch immediately or was there time between locating their egg in the Heart of Nuren and the dragon's hatchday? How much have they grown? Her egg will only have hatched a few days prior to the first intro log, and Landia (her dragon) will be as small as a kitten, able to be carted around in Nanami's arms.

How have your character's interactions with the Remnants within the city been? Chiaki has been kind to them, as she is kind to everyone. While she might have confusing conversations, she has only been patient and helpful to anyone she's spoken to, regardless of species or any other factor. She has tried not to be a bother and has kept to any rules given, but has also tried to find a way to Help Out every day. She would have answered all questions asked of her, albeit sometimes in a rather confusing manner.

How have your character's interactions with the Touched within the city been? The same as her interactions with the Remnants; Chiaki does not seem to mind either species.

Has your character been living in the mountain cavern homes of Upper Nuren or within the housing areas of Lower Nuren? She likes the mountain cavern homes since it's a little less crowded than Lower Nuren, but is perfectly willing to move shop if her castmates would prefer to go elsewhere upon arrival. For ease, she would have chosen a particular home that would hold more than just herself...although until her four castmates showed up, it'd mostly be used by Nanami and Landia.