↠ THE PLAYER
Name: Sarah
Contact: thelightroyale @ plurk!
Over 18? Yep!
Other characters: None.


↠ THE CHARACTER
Name | Alias: Arashi Narukami
Journal: runwaying
Age: 17 as of canon point!
Canon: Ensemble Stars!
Canon point: It's. Mildly complicated. Ensemble Stars! is actually a mobile game where the actual timeline of the game takes place in the span of one year, but the timeline kind of loops around so that new events added can still be fitted into the current timeline? this is an image updated till about September with all the events that have been posted thus far!

I'm most likely going to take Arashi from post-canon when the third years have graduated (i.e. after March) to allow for any future events to be incorporated. Please let me know if this is okay!
History:
Wiki page | Arashi's translated appearances: | Arashi's mini-events

Ensemble Stars! is a mobile idol game that doesn't exactly function as a mobile game, but rather, it's styled pretty much more like an otome game rather than a rhythm game.

The protagonist in the game takes on the role of the Producer, who is the first female student in Yumenosaki Private Academy and helps to produce the students in the school's Idol programme! However, once she discovers the current state of the school and its broken system, she helps the protagonist unit, Trickstar, to rebel against the tyrannical student council and reform the system. In the end, the good guys win and the school enters a reformation period where the current game (and all related events) take place and focus on the idol students and their relationships with the other students.

Personality: note: In-canon, Arashi tends to refer to himself using the feminine pronoun atashi and tends to refer to himself as neesan/onee-chan (older sister) and there might be liberal references to such. As such, while I'm mostly going to use he/him pronouns for the sake of consistency, I may sometimes use she/her pronouns in tags and in-game as well.

Like his name, Arashi Narukami is a storm - a force of nature, if you will.

On first impression, Arashi is a friendly and cheerful person, quick to smile, always having a kind word or greeting even to complete strangers - his very first meeting with the protagonist in his sub-story has him caution against being caught by the student council for sneaking into Yumenosaki's idol campus, only for Arashi to immediately warm up to her upon finding out that she is in the producer's course and subsequently naming himself as the producer's onee-chan. Arashi is smart and usually is able to pick up things almost immediately. He's talented in many areas but not really a master in any of them, and has been stated to like hardworking and honest people mostly because they have something that he doesn't have.

A narcissist at his best, Arashi knows that he's attractive and adores attention. Part of the reason why Arashi is good at being a model is that he enjoys being watched and how being in front of the camera is able to bring out his natural beauty and radiance. Arashi is confident enough to toe the line between self-confidence and outright arrogance, and it is this confidence that allows Arashi to pretty much take most things in stride and seem completely unflappable in canon. Insults (mostly from Izumi, but there have been instances of rejection from people like Ritsu and Subaru) tend to roll off Arashi's back like water, and sometimes Arashi gives as good as he gets, hitting back with witty, snarky comebacks.

Arashi is quick to give affection, both through physical touch and also in words - if he likes you, it's almost always immediately apparent, either via physical touch, affectionate nicknames or general protectiveness, even if it may not always be reciprocated. There's a playful streak that manifests in Arashi's interactions with most people, especially around those that he's at least comfortable with; teasing is generally how he expresses affection and also amusement, while Izumi and the rest of his unit mates are often the recipients of his teasing, Arashi also tends to playfully needle at people who will definitely react to his teasing, including Subaru and Izumi. He likes to spoil his juniors, including treating them and also indulging in their requests sometimes, like agreeing to teach them how to make chocolates for Chocolat Fes. He's also quick to love and facies himself as a champion of unrequited love, especially since the object of his affections, Kunugi-sensei, has yet to return his declarations of love, one-sided as they are.

At his core, Arashi cares deeply - both as a person and also for his friends. He has strong feelings about how friendship functions and how it's supposed to be a give and take situation between friends, although personally, he doesn't mind going out of his way to help people and derives joy from seeing the people that he loves happy. While he's quick to declare himself as the producer's onee-chan, that's because he recognises, rather quickly, that a lone girl in an all-boys school would suffocate without a female presence to ground her. He arranges for the second years to involve Yuzuru in conversation and organises activities like pillow fights during the school trip to cheer Yuzuru up and to take his mind off Tori so that he can enjoy himself. He agrees to help Mika out at his part-time job at a flower shop when they're short staffed because he can't imagine abandoning a beloved friend when they're in distress and need help. Arashi is kind of selfless in that way, and is almost everything that you would expect from an actual knight - elegant, chivalrous and powerful. Tsukasa calls him as such, in one instance during Star Festival, stating that Arashi is righteous and kind, like an ideal knight. He wants to see the people that he cares for succeed, which is why he also goes out of his way during Phantom Thieves vs. Detectives to help Ra*bits with the clue for the Mystery Stage when Izumi's clues prove to be too difficult for Ra*bits to figure out on their own.

It's easy to stop there, but there's more to Arashi than meets the eye, beyond the almost carelessly flippant persona that he tends to adopt when interacting with other people.

Unexpectedly (or as expected?), Arashi is actually an extremely introspective and sharp person, and also has a serious side to him, though it doesn't manifest often. Some of Arashi's monologues are surprisingly deep and perceptive, and gives quite a lot of insight to his attitudes towards certain things like dreams as well as love and friendship, which are all things that Arashi holds close to his heart. Consequently, it is because of his strong feelings towards these three ideas and concepts that Arashi is someone who will step in and intervene if he feels that the people that he cares about are endangering everything that they've worked for, or are putting themselves in danger. The most obvious example is during Star Festival, which is pretty much the one time where Arashi looks visibly distressed about Mika's impulsiveness in wanting to attack Nazuna, because if Mika had done so, he would have been throwing away all the effort that he had put into rebuilding Valkyrie, and having seen people been destroyed by their broken dreams, it's understandable that Arashi doesn't want things like that to happen to his close friends.

Speaking of Star Festival, we also learn during its events that nobody really knows about who Arashi is - he's the kind of person who you could be talking with for ages and yet realise, once you've walked away from the conversation, that you don't know very much about that person at all. Leo lampshades this, saying that he's not close with Arashi, and that Arashi doesn't tell even his unit mates anything about himself. Arashi has a tendency to lie constantly about small things if it means that his unit mates will stop worrying about him, and has a tendency to deflect personal questions unless he's literally cornered about it and has the information dragged out of him. That's honestly the only reason why and how Leo is the only person (aside from Izumi, as implied) who knows about Arashi's backstory regarding his loss and why he was praying at the cenotaph in winter, although he outright lies to Tsukasa that he has no particular reason to be there aside from doing a good deed, to sweep snow away from the cenotaph and to maintain it. The lying isn't out of malice or out of anything like that, though. Arashi admits to himself that he's not particularly ready to tell anyone about the less savoury parts of his backstory.

On the topic of the less savoury parts of his backstory, Arashi wasn't always this selfless or kind. Izumi notes that Arashi had a pretty terrible personality prior to canon, and there are shades of it still evident in Arashi's current behaviour and personality.

Arashi likes competition - most of the time, it's friendly competition between the other runners of the track team, and most of Izumi and Arashi's interactions usually involve a competition of some sort, for instance, in Beauties of Nature and Ballet, Arashi and Izumi both get competitive over how much attention they can command from the audience. Arashi is someone who thrives if there is someone to surmount or surpass, because it makes him feel as if he has to work for the validation of being the peak. This need for competition wasn't always benign, though, Arashi used to be someone who would actually go behind Izumi's back to steal his modeling jobs, and would also be rude to seniors and respond sarcastically when confronted about it. Even now, Arashi also has a tendency to respond with witty, sarcastic remarks if the situation calls for it, although it's mostly played off as teasing, especially when it comes to his interactions with Izumi.

Something that not everyone expects Arashi to have is a vicious and almost cruel streak - it's also not immediately apparent, but because Arashi is very good at interacting with people, he's also very good at using people's weaknesses against them. One specific instance is during the events of Judgment, when Arashi has zero qualms about using Makoto's fear of Izumi to threaten Makoto (specifically, Arashi mentions siccing Izumi on Makoto) to wrangle information about Leo's temporary unit for Judgment, which he manages to do so successfully. He also has a flair for the dramatic and can be a bit of a sadist, especially during Lives - while he's also stated that he's not a fan of the Duel format which knights is famous for, in a Duel against Trickstar, Arashi seems to take pleasure in the thought of single-handedly destroying Trickstar and annihilating them, crushing them to bits.

Abilities and Nerfs: Aside from being an idol and a model, nothing of note! Arashi is a regular human.

Inventory: The only items Arashi will be carrying around will be his pocket hand mirror and his personal mobile phone, which obviously doesn't work anymore. Nothing of note otherwise!

Appearance: Here's a gallery link to all his canon outfits/appearances in game!

Five Desires:
1.) Makeup and skincare products - access to the highest end range of products for his flawless skin.
2.) Fashion - access to the latest trendiest styles and most fashionable clothes because you can't be a model without dressing well!
3.) Vouchers for fancy dinners and dates
4.) Upgraded living quarters
5.) ... That's about it, actually. That said, Arashi would also be motivated to complete the card by the opportunity to go home, although he would be curious enough to stay for a while to explore, at least.