short skirt, long katana

[Player]
Name/Handle: Carly
Age: 23
AIM/YIM/MSN/Plurk/Etc: yaysunshine, sparkleponii@gmail, veryroundbird 
Email: yaysunshine@gmail
Current Characters: n/a

[Character]
Character Name: Anri Sonohara
Source: Durarara!!

Personality: Anri is a quiet, thoughtful girl, with a tendency toward passivity in her daily life; her attitude is that bad things will pass after a while if she just withdraws. She usually keeps only a small number of friends who are generally much more outgoing and serve as a buffer between her and the rest of the world, but even her friends don't often get to know all about her.

As a child, she was abused physically by her father, and to cope with it, she closed herself off emotionally to the point where she describes herself as unable to love (though there's hints of her beginning to heal in that respect). She also experiences disassociation and depersonalization episodes under periods of stress as a result--she slips into a state where the world is far away and fuzzy, like she's watching a movie on a bad television.

She's also rather astute and self-aware; she thinks of herself as clever and is very reflective. While she's quiet and shy, she's able to articulate quite eloquently to Haruna Niekawa why she decided to be a "parasite" and why she doesn't consider it to be necessarily bad; she also has an awareness of the world around her and other people's motivations that her actions don't necessarily belie.

Anri also has a streak of pragmatism and ruthlessness. Her being a "parasite" is part of this, in that she generally makes friends in order to protect herself, rather than any desire for companionship, in a sort of symbiotic relationship; she reflects that Mika Harima kept her around as a friend to make herself look better, and Anri herself gained someone to depend on; her friendship with Mikado and Masaomi had elements of this at the beginning as well, although her relationship with Mika led to her being more interested in interacting with people than she had been before and led to her friendships with Mikado and Masaomi being genuine, eventually. She was also willing to use the Saika children made by Niekawa to act as her spies, and has on more than one occasion cut someone with Saika to force them to perform good actions.

History/Pull Point: history link. I'm borrowing from the anime canon here and taking all the events of the last arc as canon (some of them weren't in the novels, which are spottily translated to English by fans) and yoinking her from just before Shizuo arrives at Shinra and Celty's apartment. At this point she's still working through her tendency to handle her issues alone, like her other two friends, which I think is an interesting place to play her from.

Abilities/Special Powers/Non average skills: Anri is the parasite of the sentient demon sword Saika. (The wording is important: she is possessing Saika, not the other way around, which is what happens to most people.) Saika, an ancient katana, developed a "love" of humanity and compels its wielder to cut others to bring them into the family, so to speak. Saika creates "children" in the souls of those she cuts, whom she can control and influence. Anri doesn't enjoy doing this, and is generally immune to the compulsion, but considers it necessary in some cases. (Note: Some people are naturally immune to Saika's influence for one reason or another [see: Shizuo Hewaijima].)

Wielding Saika has also taught Anri swordsmanship, to the point where she could be considered an expert. She can hold her own against experienced, powerful combatants, and Saika can cut through things like butter that an ordinary sword wouldn't be able to cut, like heavy metal doors.

Saika is stored in her body, and she can use it to block attacks even while it's not drawn by using her left arm. Anri can draw Saika from her hand at any time.

[Game Specific]
Character class: Knight

Why your character would be that class: Anri, after the Slasher incident, took inspiration from Celty Sturlson's words to use her power to better the town and help others, rather than be a monster. She's also very devoted to those she considers friends, and will go to great lengths to save them. I mean, she walked into a gang meeting on her own to save a friend.

Oh, and she's a master swordswoman with a sentient katana, etc, did I mention that.

Powers/skills to be gained by being that class: She gets a horse, I guess. (She's already got the sword, after all.)

[Samples]
Log sample:
Schwanheim Castle stands ahead of her, outlined against the colorful, many-hued sunset and amid a valley of grass and flowers; the sky is dotted with perfectly fluffy clouds today. It's a breathtakingly lovely sight.

Is this a dream, too?

Anri dreams often, of her parents, of birthday parties and trips to the amusement park and holiday celebrations, of a happy family that never existed. Or, if it did, one she doesn't remember. She always has a keen sense of awareness of their falsity, though. It's a fantasy, a bedtime story to help her sleep at night. Nothing more.

But no, no, this is real. The grass tickles at her ankles, the sun warms her face... This should be a dream, but it isn't. And if she still couldn't tell the difference, if it were her own idle fantasy--

--there wouldn't be the thorns. There they are, creeping in up to the edge of the woods; where they come from, she doesn't yet know, although supposedly she and the others are supposed to rid the town of them. There's something about them... Anri knows well that dark things aren't always bad things. Herself, for one, and Celty-san. But those thorns make her wary. When Anri cuts things, they don't usually grow back.

For better or for worse, it seems her everyday life is continuing to change, and she worries that she'll have to change with it...

Orb sample:
[It's difficult to make out the speaker's expression in the low light, but the sharp panic in her voice is clearly audible.]

Ah--this is Sonohara...

Pardon me if I've woken you, but--I was out by the forest, and... I found this.

[What she holds up to the orb is a child's doll, dressed in pink and white, now smudged with dirt.]

Please, if someone--

[Somewhere distant, there's a low growl, and a child's scream.]

--I'm sorry, I have to go!

[Before the orb transmission cuts out, her eyes flash red as she turns and runs in the direction of the Forest.]