Application

[industrius]

PLAYER
Name: Penguin
Age: 22
Personal Journal: N/A
AIM/MSN/etc: Skype: penguin400;

CHARACTER
Name: Shintarou, Midorima
Canon: Kuroko no Basuke
Age: 16/ [He’s tall and well-built, so it’s easy to mistake him for older]
Timeline: Winter Cup; After Rakuzan match

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Personality:

Midorima is a good and kind person underneath a thick layer of arrogance and stoic faces. His superstitious and introverted nature makes him difficult to befriend. Takao, who is probably the closest thing to a friend Midorima has, is easygoing enough to be able to withstand Midorima’s odd personality. But it comes at a price of pulling Midorima around in a rickshaw, accompanying Midorima in his lucky item hunts, and of course, having to put up with Midorima’s high and mighty attitude.

Even among the Generation of Miracles, a group of elite teenage basketball players all with sky high egos and enough quirks to make a pixie manic girl spin, Midorima is considered difficult to deal with. Shuutoku’s coach even has to restrict Midorima to 3 odd requests a day, so he doesn’t get out of hand. Midorima is curt and has no problem relying on only himself, stemming back to his self-centered attitude. An example as such, Midorima often practiced alone after regular basketball practice. He rarely practiced with others because he felt his shots were all Shuutoku, his current basketball team, needed to win and therefore he should practice to perfect his 3 pointers further. He has even rejected practice regimes that stress teamwork. In addition, Midorima would not attempt to make a shot he was not sure will go in, nor would he pass to another teammate unless absolutely necessary[since he is able to shoot anywhere on the court, he found it natural he will always be scoring]. These actions are also a result of the immense pride Midorima has. This later changes after Shuutoku's loss again Seirin*.

Prideful to the point of arrogance describes most of the Generation of Miracles and Midorima is no exception. It is almost unavoidable for teenage boys with too many victories on their hand not to get an inflated sense of self. However, Midorima’s pride does not stem solely from winning games. He is aware of his skills and talent, but also believes in doing “everything in his power” to better himself. He works hard and does not accept anything, but his best. When the rest of the Generation of Miracles became too good, most of them stopped practicing; they saw no point in practicing when no other teams could come close to beating them. However, Midorima continued to practice everyday because not practicing would mean he wasn’t trying his best.

In turn, he often hold other people to his own high standards. Midorima was peeved when his previous teammates stopped coming to practicing. He was also initially upset at Kuroko for joining Seirin because he did not believe that Seirin would bring out Kuroko’s full potential. However, Midorima respects those who practice hard, in particular his senpais and teammates. When an opposing team declared that “everybody on the team but [Midorima was] a hindrance”, Midorima willingly defended the rest of the team even if they were not as skills as he is; he is still acknowledged their hard work. On the contrary, he has no desire to help those that do not want to help themselves. In the second OVA he refused to lend Kise or Takao his specialty rolling pencil(for multiple choice tests, you roll the pencil and it lands on a number corresponding to the answer; pure luck, much like rolling a die) because neither of them did everything that can to study for the exam. Midorima justify himself using the pencil because he only used it as a last resort for certain questions and does not abuse it.

[At current canon, Midorima is less self-centered. His loss against Seirin gave him some humility. He is willing to pass to his teammates and willing to trust his teammates to get the rebound on any shots that he misses. This shows he is willing to put aside some of his pride to attempt victory with the entire team.]

Man proposes, God disposes

The gist of the saying is that despite man’s intentions, God may have different plan; fate may not always follow man’ intentions. This is Midorima’s motto, although there are no hints he is a religious man. Instead, this motto may be for Midorima to remind himself on why he needs to do "everything in his power" to ensure results. It also eases his mind that he has done all that he can to get his desired results, leaving him no regrets. His previous mentioned superstitious nature is focus mostly on Oha Asa, a daily horoscope program that gives the rankings of each horoscopes’ luck for the day and provide the “lucky item” of that day to make sure your day goes smoothly. Though it seems odd for someone as straight-laced as Midorima to follow Oha Asa, it is simply another method of doing everything he can to ensure his desire results. Following Oha Asa, taking care of his nails, and practicing every day are a few of the things that shows the lengths Midorima go to to achieve victory. This is his version of “man proposes”; man doing everything can. Therefore, Midorima is rarely seen without the Cancer’s lucky item of the day, no matter how odd the item(ie; tanuki statues, scissors, a tape dispenser, and a red balloon to name a few). His teammates find the items less amusing.

It is difficult to see the kinder sides of Midorima amidst his less friendly and quirky sides, but it is there. Midorima is willing to help if he believes you need it, making him quite considerate. He helped Kagami realize his weaker points when Kagami was practicing his new skills, admittingly after insulting Kagami and shutting him down first. He also helped encourage Kuroko to further his skills beyond passing. Midorima did not need to help either of them, as the result do not really benefit him. Though it can be argued he wanted the challenge, he is not short on challenges with the other Generation of Miracles roaming about. In addition, he doesn’t even consider Kagami and Kuroko friends of his, yet he went out of his way to help them. Midorima is the type of person to say:“You’re an idiot, let me show you why you’re wrong, and what you need to do to fix it.”

In a drama CD, he and some of his “friends” stumbled upon a lost child. When the child started crying, his companions attempted to soothe her, but his first response was to walk away. While his action is seemingly cold, he actually went to get help from security to see if someone was looking for the child. Ultimately, he was the one to help reunite the child and parent. Midorima seemed distant at first, he had the best intention in mind.

Lesser known attributes of Midorima

Midorima is a creature of habit. He follows a pretty set daily routine: breakfast, listen to Oha Asa, obtain his lucky item, school, basketball, etc. He is not likely to seek excitement willingly. It is not to say he is unable to deal with change in his life, but he is definitely much more comfortable with a set plan. He has no trouble with repetitive movements, as that is what his self-practice consist of, shooting 3 pointers one after another. His taste in food also seems fairly inflexible. When he feels like indulging he prefers canned red bean soup whether it’s summer or winter.[Red bean soups is usually a warm dessert soup, but it can be served cold. Kagami seems baffled on why Midorima would want to consume it cold though, hinting that's it's a bit odd.]

Midorima is quite observant for a teenage boy, despite not knowing the proper social cues sometimes. He is able to recognize the potential abilities of people(mostly basketball related) and gauge the true feelings of people through their actions. He was one of the first people to realize the slow change in Akashi’s personality. However his hindsight is fairly short, as he is not always aware when he upsets people. Though it can simply be that he doesn’t really care.

His competitive and prideful personality seems mostly present with basketball and academic related things. He has no trouble being relatively polite otherwise.

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Midorima in a nutshell; he is arrogant because he’s good at basketball, but he still values hard work. He’s kind of a weirdo and takes Oha Asa too seriously. He is willing to help if he believes you deserve it, but may not always be able to express that sentiment. A 6’5” green-haired boy with a heart… not quite gold, maybe silver.

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Background:

Midorima Shintarou on the KnB Wiki

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Abilities:

Midorima can shoot ridiculously far with high accuracy(ie; he can make a shot from one end of the court to the other~ 84 feet in length....yeah, I don't know what they're feeding these kids). Though it’s usually done with a basketball, he is able to do it with other objects(ie; a box of ice cream bars in first OVA to stop a thief).

He’s good at basketball, I guess.

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First Person:

[The screen flickers on to show a bespectacled green hair male. He looks rather disgruntled.]

It seems I missed my train stop. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I don’t see how else I could have missed my usual stop. There doesn’t seem to be another train going back...

[His eyes wander off to some posters, before he adjusts his glasses with his left hand. Others may notice all his fingers on his left hand are all bandaged]

I’m also missing my cellphone. This pocket watch seems to provide some of the basic function of one, but I would like my cellphone back.

Takao, if this is your idea of a joke, I’m not amused.

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Third Person:

It was brighter when he stepped out of the train than when he stepped in, or so Midorima remembered. This was definitely not the right stop and he’s not entirely sure why he got off in the first place. Did Takao push him out?

He reached into his pocket for his phone with the intention of giving the point guard a good scolding, but his hand was only shocked from the cold touch of something most definitely not his cellphone. To Midorima’s credit, he does not panic until he searched every possible pocket it could be in. When at last frantically patting himself yielded no result, Midorima reasoned that he must’ve left it on the train. Annoying, but he could easily get a new one. His parents will be disappointed, so he will promise to be more vigilant next time.

He’s actually more peeved he can’t angrily text Takao at the moment.

He settled on fiddling with the odd pocket watch as he waited for the next train, vaguely noticing that there’s not another platform for the trains going the opposite direction and the lack of a ticket booth or machine. Yet, it’s clear that the current station was not the last stop as he clearly remembered the train continued it’s merry way after he stepped off.

An half an hour passed when he’s sure he successfully figured out all the watch had to offer. He also posted a video to the other "citizens" of this town as per the posters on the wall. It seemed really elaborate for a prank, which was the story he had gone with for the time being. He's not really sure if there's a more logical alternative explanation. At that point he’s well aware that the train was not coming, at the very least, but he’s stubborn. As if he could out wait the city or whoever placed him in this mess.

He does not stay stubborn much longer, waiting for nothing had made him anxious.

Midorima finally resolved to venture into the city, with a bright orange and black school bag slinging off his shoulder and a life size penguin plush in hand. At least he didn't forget his lucky item, then it would’ve be a really bad day.