Character Base

• Character Name: Ryan Akagi
• Age: 19
• Canon (Date/Year Released)/Canon Point: Infinity Train Book 4 (2021) | Post-series, 1987-ish
• Items Coming Along:

Clothes on his back: Green turtleneck, ripped white jeans, brown jacket, boots, red glasses.
Guitar: An Airline '59 2P electric guitar and case. The case has a number of stickers on it, including a map of British Columbia, a dolphin, a razor blade, cover of his solo album, a raised fist, logo for his band Chicken Choice Judy, and a lightning bolt.
Music Equipment: Amp for his guitar and a microphone.
Chicken Choice Judy Shirt: Band Tee Min-Gi made for him that tragically got shrunk in the wash. Has a lot of sentimental value, sometimes wears it as a very punk rock headband.
Box of Cassettes and a tape player: These here and this cute kids sing-a-long tape player

• Content Warnings for Character: Emotional neglect, Period-typical homophobia, self-destructive tendencies/self harm, self-worth issues, Emotional shutdown/breakdown, trauma.

Character Background

• History: Ryan Akagi at the Infinity Train Wiki and Infinity Train Book 4 on Wiki.
• Core Relationships:

MIN-GI PARK: Min-Gi is honestly the single most important person in Ryan's life. They were born on the same day at the same hospital in Powell Lake B.C. and their fathers met in the nursery and became friends, so by ✨SHEER DESTINY✨ they became best friends. The two of them grew up together, hung out constantly, and learned to play music together - Ryan on electric guitar and lead vocals and Min-Gi on synth. Ryan was often over Min-Gi's house, since it was a lot less chaotic than his own, or they would go out to the local Dumpty's and plan out their future. Ryan has been sure since he was at least twelve years old that he wants to spend his life with Min-Gi, touring the world with their band and making music history. He has plans and a vision and the knee-jerk impulse to hit the gas and just go! However in senior year, when he tells Min-Gi that they're leaving in a week to go on tour, Min-Gi panics and abandons Ryan on stage, and for a while they go their separate ways.

Eventually, after a number of tumultuous relationships on the road and awkward gigs at people's house parties and senior centers, Ryan comes back to Powell Lake with almost nothing to his name and finds Min-Gi working at the Dumpty's they planned their whole future in. In a fit of desperation, Ryan gives Min-Gi a train ticket and tells him that he has a show in New York in a couple of days and he wants Min-Gi to come with him, TONIGHT. Min-Gi of course says no, because that is a buck wild thing Ryan asked him to do, and so Ryan does the actual most buck wild thing entirely on impulse - he takes Min's keys to the diner and runs.

Min-Gi chases Ryan all the way to the train leaving for New York, only to find a wormhole in an empty train car. They're both stunned, but Ryan is too on his bullshit to think about what he's doing and pitches Min-Gi's keys into the wormhole and runs after them, forcing Min to follow. This is ultimately how they wind up on the Infinity Train, to ~~have couples therapy~~ work their shit out. And they get there eventually!

KEZ: Once they got on the Infinity Train, they met Kez! She's a little floating concierge bell who has absolutely no filter or impulse control. A thought goes into her brain and she says it. An idea strikes her and she does it. Kez cannot be tamed. Ryan adores her, but also sometimes she can be a little too much for him. He's prone to getting easily frustrated with her, though it's often hypocritically for things that other people get frustrated with him over. Still, even with the many many many problems she's caused, Kez is ultimately a delight and he enjoys her company very much. She often calls herself Mama Kez and has been known to plant warm kisses on their cheeks. She's what is called a Denizen, meaning a natural resident of the train (in other words, she just lives there and doesn't have a number to reduce, despite her many issues.).

Ryan also spent their entire time on the train together wondering if it would be okay for him to ring her, and when they left he finally worked up the nerve to ask if he could. It was exactly as satisfying as he was hoping it would be.

RYAN'S UNNAMED IMMEDIATE FAMILY: Ryan comes from a huge family! His mother (Yui) and father (no name given) had at least 5 kids. He has two older sisters and two younger brothers, and isn't close in age to either pair of siblings. When Ryan was born (despite him being their first son) his father cracks a joke to Min-Gi's father that he can't get off the ferry without tripping over another kid. There's an implication that the Akagi family has more children than they can really emotionally take care of, and that his dad isn't terribly involved beyond firing up the grill now and then. The only other information we really receive about them is that he talked his Dad into giving him his old van when he graduated high school, and that Ryan strongly believes that his parents don't care about him unless he's "doing something". Ryan isn't emotionally (or financially, anymore) supported by his family, and it is more common for him to mention Min-Gi's parents than his own. He isn't even sure if his parents realized he went missing on the Infinity Train, or if they care that he's gone.

MIN-GI'S UNNAMED PARENTS: Min-Gi is an only child, and Ryan was often over his house when they were kids. They were stricter with Min and firm about when Ryan needed to leave, but would insist on making sure he left with oranges (even if he said he didn't need them). Despite the fact that they were always wary of Ryan and Min's dreams of being rock stars, Ryan outright says at many points that Min-Gi has parents who care about him, and speculates that they are probably worried. While Ryan was on the road, he doesn't mention his own parents beyond a break-up song about his dad's van, but we learn that he sent Min's parents a cassette of his first album. When he returns to Powell Lake (without his Dad's van) he does not go to his parents - he goes to Min-Gi's house, where his parents tell him he's working at Dumpty's.

Character Personality Through Key Moments

(2+) Positive Experiences:

I'M GONNA DRESS MY CAT IN A TOQUE: When Ryan and Min-Gi were six years old, their families had a barbeque at Ryan's house and the two of them decided to put on a show. Min-Gi made and distributed invitations, and Ryan spiked up his hair and painted a Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt over his eye and took off his shirt. The two of them worked hard to try and command the attention of their families. Min-Gi's parents weren't fans of the music, but...at least they were paying attention. Not a single person in Ryan's family could be bothered to look their way. At first it visibly disappoints both Ryan and Min, but Ryan offers Min a supportive thumbs-up and they press on anyway with extra enthusiasm. Why is this in positive experiences? Because Ryan always displays a mentality of "the show must go on". It was also the first song he ever wrote with Min-Gi, and it laid the framework for what Ryan wanted his entire life to be - making music with Min-Gi. From this point on, Ryan doesn't let what anyone thinks of him stand in his way - not even his family, and not even Min. Emotionally, he has to support himself, and it really shaped the kind of person he turned out to be. He acts confident and acts like everyone wants to hear his music, because the important thing is that he likes what he's doing. Screw everyone else. He knows what makes him happy and what he needs to be fulfilled.

WE GOT STUCK ON A METEOR. YOU KNOW HOW IT IS: In a previous car, Min-Gi came to the (false) conclusion that their train-assigned numbers were actually only connected to Ryan's emotional growth and not his own. After that, Min-Gi spends a significant chunk of time being a condescending jerk about it. When they arrive in the Astro Queue car - a car full of astronauts lined up to get into an exclusive party on what looks like Mars - Min urges Ryan to wait in line with everyone else, but Ryan insists on trying to find another way in. He attempts to charm the bouncer (and is gently shoved aside), he tries to climb up to a vent (which turns out to be locked), and he even tries to tunnel into the party (which just makes him hit an underground line full of some kind of molten plastic that hardens). When all of those fail, he decides to try using the warps placed throughout the queue in the hopes that one of them will warp inside of the party...which almost leads to him falling to his death. However! Min-Gi saves him, and after a fight about Ryan refusing to listen to him, comes to the realization that his way was wrong as well - all of the astronauts are skeletons inside of their suits. Ryan is oddly good natured about it (gently teasing him by saying "Do I get a turn to be smug now?") and though they don't quite resolve the fight, Ryan comes up with one more plan - one where they have to work together. They borrow a couple of astronaut costumes, make props and accessories out of the molten plastic, and tell the bouncer that they're the band for the party. This works effortlessly and the bouncer lets them in, and it's the first time on the train that Ryan really saves the day and solves the puzzle of the car. Prior to this, he had been feeling like garbage because he felt like he was the exclusive reason they were on the train, but he pushed himself to keep trying anyway - even if Min didn't like or appreciate his plans. His creativity is ultimately what gets them in the door, and if they had done things Min-Gi's way they would have wound up corpses.

(2+) Negative Experiences:

MY DAD'S VAN'S EVERYTHING YOU'RE NOT! In their senior year of high school, Ryan and Min-Gi finally signed up for Battle of the Bands (Ryan had wanted to compete even sooner by lying and saying they were seniors, but Min refused). As mentioned earlier, Min-Gi runs off after Ryan tells him they're leaving in a week to go on tour, and Ryan winds up performing on his own. Instead of seeking out Min afterwards, Ryan avoids him and then leaves on tour exactly as he said he would. This...does not go as planned. Ryan leaves without much of a plan in place for how he's going to get gigs and what he's going to do, and he winds up playing a lot of bingo halls and shitty college parties where he's basically ambient noise that no one cares about. Later in the series he mentions he knows all about getting into clubs, and he even manages to record a demo tape that he sends to the Parks (and not to his own family). He winds up in at least three relationships, all of which end in him getting dumped - and things end so badly with the last one that Ryan actually winds up giving his ex-girlfriend his van...that he was living in. Within the span of less than a year Ryan's entire life is crashing and burning, and he returns to Min as a desperate bid to get him to come back to the band. It's fueled by a lot of things, but he's manic in his pleas and he even steals Min's keys and runs away with them, which might be one of the worst impulsive things he's done. Later, Ryan says things haven't been easy for him, and he also frequently feels like his family doesn't care what happens to him, and that they wouldn't even notice he went missing. He left on that tour upset about Min-Gi but hopeful and optimistic, and he returned from it with his life falling apart and ready to impulsively drag Min-Gi down with him without even attempting to put out the flames first. It was the beginnings of a downward spiral for him, and a marked change from how carefree he was in high school.

MIND THE DOCENT: Eventually Ryan and Min find their way to the Art Gallery Car, which is a car set up as an art gallery with no obvious exit door. At first it just seems like an ordinary art gallery, but a creature called the Docent begins to prey on them. The Docent hides in shadows and wraps its hands around Ryan and Min, using its influence to pull out their darkest thoughts and feelings. They aren't planted, to be clear - they are real thoughts and feelings that the two have had, but amplified beyond their recognizable personalities. Ryan specifically takes longer to succumb to the Docent's pull - he often represses his negative emotions and tries to bottle them up, but he says outright in this episode that he always has to act like he's doing great, even when he isn't. It starts with him insisting that he's always trying to help Min, but that he's "never going to get better" and calls him dead weight for not being able to perform in front of people they'll never see again. He says "I refuse to end up like Min. I'm going to make something of myself." This escalates into claims that no one cares how he feels, and that things aren't just easy for him all the time. He doesn't lash out until the Docent wraps three hands around his whole body, but once it does he breaks an exhibit. This gets Min-Gi involved, and they lash out at each other from across the gallery about things they've really held back on ("What do you care?! If you don't want to be in my life, why do you care how I live it?!" versus "I can't drop everything in my life just because you can't figure out yours!"). It's a nasty fight, but one that Min and Ryan really needed to have, because Ryan had been burying his feelings on the matter. This is interrupted by Kez screaming, and then insisting they figure it out.

I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE! I WON'T LEAVE YOU!: However, they don't have an opportunity to talk about their Art Gallery Car fight in the moment. Ryan sees something that Min doesn't - the hidden image of a door in a hanging sculpture - and when he reaches out to touch it, he's pulled through the door...without Min. Now that he's outside of the car, he can see the Docent properly. It's a monster completely made of the arms and hands of dead passengers. Its legs are arms. Its face is made of more hands. The creature is horrifying and Ryan can clearly see it preying on Min-Gi. He bangs on the door, desperately trying to get Min to notice the exit, but he promises he isn't going anywhere, and that he won't leave him. This makes Ryan's number immediately go to zero and his exit appears right on the bridge between cars. Ryan is stunned and he...thinks about it. He really does. They've been trapped on the train for weeks at that point, maybe even months, and the train just told him he could go. Except, as soon as Ryan thinks about it, his number shoots back up into the hundreds. Later Ryan describes it by saying "the train knew I was garbage". He beats himself up extensively for even daring to think about the possibility of leaving without Min-Gi, showing that under all of the confidence and bravado, Ryan doesn't actually think he's a very good person. He holds onto this guilt for a long time - and it doesn't help that from Min-Gi's perspective, it looks like Ryan left him to die.

They briefly get a moment to talk about it, while trapped inside a mega mega mega mega maze in the next car. The two of them confront the fact that the Docent didn't create those angry thoughts, and Ryan tears up as he tells Min he wasn't trying to leave him...but, then he stops himself from crying, and they are immediately interrupted by a bunch of Denizens that want to kill them, so he doesn't actually get the emotional release he needed from the moment. Nothing is resolved and Ryan is still not having a great time in his own head, and this will escalate to a full-on breakdown in a matter of episodes. (See "I WASN'T JUST RUSHING YOU - I WAS RUSHING MYSELF")

(2+) Significant Relationship Moments:

[With Min-Gi] IF I CAN WEAR THIS TINY SHIRT, WE CAN GET OUT OF THIS CAR - AND YOU CAN BE IN THE BAND!: After talking their way into the party the astronauts literally died waiting for, Ryan and Min are given back their belongings by the train - including Ryan's guitar and Min-Gi's mini-synth. Since they have actual instruments to work with now, they're expected to perform a show for the party in order to get out of the car. They get a couple of minutes to practice and immediately vibe with the song they wrote together when they were six, but when Min frets that it won't be good enough to impress them, Ryan counters that they're never going to see any of these people again. There couldn't possibly be less pressure. So, Min decides that he's ready and they head up to the stage.

Except Min, it turns out, is not ready. Ryan gets out on the stage and introduces Min, but Min doesn't show and leaves him alone on stage. ...Again.

When Ryan finds him, he's hiding in a bathroom. He apologizes for leaving him again though, and admits he wasn't ready. This softens Ryan's anger, and he joins him in the empty bathtub Min's wallowing in. He confesses that he still has a T-Shirt that Min made for him right before they were supposed to do their high school battle of the bands, and that even though it shrank in the wash he's never done a show without it. He puts on the very tiny shirt and tells Min that if he can wear the tiny shirt, they can get out of the car - and that Min can still be in the band. Despite these reassurances, Min still worries that they won't be able to make it - there aren't many Asian guys doing what they want to do with their lives (aside from a small tangent about YMO). Ryan considers this for a beat and then says they just have to do it. That seems to be enough, and instead of going out on stage they play together in the bathroom, just softly practicing. Kez is stressed because everyone else in the party's left, but Ryan and Min are content now and they invite her in to be with them. This is enough for the door to open, because everyone at the party is content with the performance. It doesn't fix everything wrong between Ryan and Min, but it does make their numbers go down by almost half, which is a significant improvement. Ryan is waiting for Min and doing what is most comfortable for him without rushing him along.

[With Kez] LA LA LA, I'M A BELL!: Kez has acquired many, many, many enemies in their travels. Literally almost every time they have a problem in a car, (minus the Art Gallery Car and the Astro Queue Car) it isn't because they have a puzzle to solve, but because Kez ticked someone off in the car before they got there. She scrambled the atoms of some aliens that just wanted to go skiing because she was trying to get gum from a vending machine. She left tea stains on the town charter of a wild west bug world. She melted all of Pig Baby's butter and started a grease fire that destroyed all of the cookbooks except the gross post-war American cookbook! Point is, Kez is a terror. A menace. Ryan had sort of grown used to that about her, since most of the time it just boiled down to her thinking a little differently than everyone else, and he can appreciate that about her. However, her ultimate goal was to bring Ryan and Min-Gi to her roommate Morgan (a literal sentient castle), and neglected to mention that she was doing this because their last passenger Jeremy got off the train after staying with Morgan for five years.

Turns out Morgan wasn't a fan of this plan, and she attacked Ryan and Min with all of Jeremy's old things, nearly killing them. When the truth came out that Kez had led them to Morgan intending for them to live there forever, Ryan flipped. He was already deeply frustrated and emotionally burned out, and this led to him lashing out at Kez for something he ultimately doesn't like about himself. Kez doesn't know why people are always mad at her, and Ryan insists that she does. She never thinks about how her actions have consequences. She never apologizes for anything she does and just does whatever she wants without saying sorry. And when she still doesn't apologize for lying, he coldly tells her to get out. Eventually they confront her, because they're a little worried that her actions might have led to Jeremy's death, but it turns out that she actually helped Jeremy work through his problems just by being his friend, and suddenly his number went to zero and he left the train. Morgan never forgave her for it and kicked her out. Ryan...is still angry, but it's difficult to stay mad at Kez. Eventually, with encouragement from Ryan and Min, Kez apologizes to the denizens who have been chasing them across the train, and this seems to repair things between them all before Ryan and Min leave. As Ryan takes his exit, he shouts "LOVE YA, KEZ!" behind him.

[With Min-Gi again] I WASN'T JUST RUSHING YOU - I WAS RUSHING MYSELF: While Ryan and Min are staying/trapped with Morgan, the train flickers to a halt - this is something it had been doing periodically since they got on the train, due to some shenanigans behind the scenes ~~that would have been revealed in Book 5~~. The interruption causes their numbers to spin and spin as though they're changing...only to reset to their original number. 202.

And Ryan breaks. He cracks up laughing, and then he gets up and leaves Min-Gi, shutting himself in one of Morgan's many bedrooms and isolating. His mental health is at the worst we've seen it in the entire show at this point, and even the way he walks away feels unbalanced.

Despite everything that's happened between them, this is so completely unlike Ryan that Min gets concerned enough to repeatedly check on him. He leaves food outside Ryan's door three separate times and Ryan never takes it - and due to the way the cars have lined up, it means that Ryan hasn't eaten in at least three days, if not longer. On the fourth try, Min knocks and says he's coming in and Ryan is just sitting in a chair, completely miserable. He doesn't want to talk, and asks Morgan to throw a blanket on him (which she does). Ryan and Min do talk for a bit though, and Ryan fesses up to what's really been eating at him for the last several days - he got his exit, and he almost took it. ("The train knew I was garbage. And...now, so do you."). Min is stunned, and leaves the plate of food at Ryan's feet. Soon after, Ryan is lured out by the sound of Min-Gi's mini-synth and investigates, finding him practicing. Min makes it abundantly clear that he has no intentions of leaving Ryan again, and that he wants to go on tour with him and reunite their band. He isn't going to throw everything he and Ryan have away because Ryan had one bad thought he clearly regrets, and he's going to start doing what he actually wants to do with his life...which is music, with Ryan. This is enough for Ryan to pull himself out of his slump and join Min with his guitar.

They talk a bit more beyond this as well, and Ryan apologizes for pushing Min-Gi when he wasn't ready. The admission that gets both of them off the train is that it wasn't just bad for Min but bad for Ryan. He wasn't just rushing Min; he was rushing himself too. It's this open communication between them and the ability to really talk and be honest with their feelings that repairs their relationship and ultimately makes their numbers go down to zero, allowing them to finally exit the train together.

Chapter 2 Attributes

• Canon Powers: No canon powers, except the power of rock and roll.
• Blood Type: Paleblood
• Omen: Sea Otter! Their name is Tomo, and they will be sort of tricksy and playful, with some inspiration taken from Japanese myth. Ryan will have a somewhat strained relationship with them, because they tend to be more reflective of his honest thoughts and feelings and he doesn't always want those revealed! Tomo will grow on him though, and he will eventually have to learn to accept Tomo for who they are - and himself for who he is.
• Blessed Day: February 2nd - written out, it's 02/02, and his number on the Infinity Train was 202. This number is representative of his various issues (combined with Min-Gi's various issues) and the goal of their time on the train was to reduce this number to zero.
• Patron Pthumerian: The Doorway, Patron of Relationships. Ryan will be feeling uncomfortably seen by his patron, and will fear judgement from them for arriving in Trench without Min-Gi. He didn't mean to show up in Trench first, but that doesn't change the fact that he did. After everything that happened in the Art Gallery Car, it feels like he broke a promise not to leave him - though Ryan is likely being harder on himself than anyone else ever will be.
• Blood Power Manifestation:

EMPATHY: Ryan is going to start being able to feel the emotions of others around him to an uncomfortable degree! This will be excellent for his musical career, but bad for many, many other things. Mostly though, it will force him to realize more immediately when his impulsive and reckless actions are too much for the people around him. Others will also be able to feel this emotions, to a lesser degree. Will require a physical connection at first, but once he knows he can do it his range will start to grow.
TELEPATHY: Ryan is going to be an open book at first. In addition to his empathy powers, he'll also be able to communicate telepathically with people in a short radius around him (at least at first). He will have startlingly little control over it when he first arrives, and there will be not just a lot of him getting caught broadcasting thoughts he didn't want to say out loud, but also people on the street being subjected to whatever is stuck in his head at the time. Good luck with that, everyone who isn't Ryan. Intentional thought-sharing will require physical touch at first, but eventually his range will expand.
MEMORY SHARE: Ryan will also be able to share memories with people, projecting them directly into their minds by thinking about them. Intentional memory-sharing will require touch at first, but eventually his range will expand.
HALLUCINATIONS: This is a music-based power! Basically, it will allow Ryan to project what he's thinking about or what he wants people to hear so that anyone listening to his music can see it vividly. It will never adjust the quality of his own guitar-playing, but it will range from being able to add musical accompaniment that doesn't exist to giving someone a full on Ratatouille-style flashback of visions of their childhood home. At the beginning it will be limited to just anyone directly in front of him, but will eventually expand to anyone who can hear his music clearly (so for example, anyone who is attending a concert will see and hear things that aren't there, but someone in the hallway with the sound muffled by the door won't see anything extra). It's ultimately going to make his shows extremely cool to go to once he gets the hang of it.
LATER ON: Not immediately, but I'd like him to discover the ability to receive prophetic visions! This would likely present musically, as a stroke of bardic inspiration that he could replicate and play for others. Also, he can dream walk if he sleeps in the same bed as someone and winds up touching them. He's a creative guy who likes to push the limits of what he can do under normal circumstances, so he'll have fun playing around with his new powers. When he thinks about his powers, he'll think of them as generally letting himself slip through the mental wall between himself and others - they can hear his thoughts and memories, he can feel their feelings, they can see the wild trippy things he wants them to see when he's on stage. That's the angle he'll be coming from when he tests stuff out - pushing that metaphorical wall to see how much give it has.

Writing Samples

One: Eddie shouts PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS in Ryan's brain and new powers, sexy Halloween costumes for men, and music are all discussed.
Two: Ryan bonds with Wu immediately. Wu brings him to Mako so they can look for Min-Gi, but surprise! Mako looks a LOT like Min! They also discover memory-sharing by accident.

The Player

• Player Name: Billie Sue
• Player Age: 32
• Player Contact:

goodhotcocoa + goodhotcocoa2456 on Discord!
• Permissions: Here!

Link to your reserve for this character: Here.

Other Characters

Stan Pines - also being apped this round per the September/October app round exception.

DEERINGTON 2 APP