empanadas

[trypanophobic]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: jaz
Contact: poisonparfait | discord: yipyap#0418
Age: 29
Current Characters: none


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Killua Zoldyck
Age: Between 14/15, at present.
Canon: Hunter x Hunter
Canon Point: After episode 148. He's just chilling and doing his own thing with his sister as the series goes into its next arc kind of without him.


Background: The short of it. Aaand the long of it (linear canon stuff).

Personality:
On the surface, Killua is a cheeky brat. He's mischievous, easily bored and rude (especially towards adults). Due to his upbringing, he isn't particularly unused to getting whatever he wants, and generally speaking, he doesn't possess an over-abundance of manners. He can be sarcastic and enjoys poking fun at people. He also has a sweet tooth from hell, and enjoys normal little boy things like skateboarding, video games, and games in general. He also seems to have a sort of interest in fashion (if you can call it that); he changes outfits more than any other character in the series does, which might be an example of how frivolous Killua can be with money, as he once spent an absolutely ridiculous fuckton of money on sweets and junk food. Granted, he was much younger, but it hasn't been insinuated that his discipline has changed.

In line with his cocky, bratty personality, Killua is rather confident. He knows he's a prodigal member of his assassin family, and more intelligent than most adults. He likes to show off, and he also likes to test people and mess with them, often casually dropping startling information about his violent, unconventional family life. This is in part to see if they think he's joking, if it horrifies them, or if they take him at face value. Another example of Killua enjoying messing with people was when someone tried to poison him and his colleagues using laxative sodas—Killua drank all four of them just to freak the assailant out, as Killua's immune to such weak poison.

Of course, a lot of aspects of Killua's personality can shift when you really get to know him. For example, if you're friends with Killua, he's more likely to be embarrassed by your compliments than to brag on them despite coming across as conceited otherwise; he has no reason to show off to people who already know him. He's especially embarrassed when these earnest compliments come from his best friend.

And despite seeming to enjoy shock humor, as well as having a pretty brutal familiarity with the grittier parts of life (you know, being a professional murderer from a family of professional murderers), it's been demonstrated that Killua is grossed out by fish that's served with the head still on/eyes still in tact, and sometimes bugs.

Another surface aspect of Killua's personality is "professional" Killua—he can shift into a completely different state of mind to commit atrocities without empathy, and in this state, Killua has no regard for mercy or human life. There's been times when Killua's been deliberately put into this sort of trance by other people who knew how to manipulate him, but there's also been a couple times wherein Killua would murder people if he was merely in a bad mood and was rubbed the wrong way. Thankfully, that's rare. He's ruthless, and from time to time, he can be downright bloodthirsty. As a Zoldyck, he's even been conditioned to derive some pleasure from murder, much like a cat can revel in playing with its victims. His father (and brother)'s intentions were to make it so that Killua derived pleasure only from murder, but thankfully, that didn't seem to work.

Despite his confidence in his deadly capabilities, Killua is often paralyzed in the face of terror. His general arrogance and ease comes from the fact that he's so much stronger than most people—even powerful ones—and not so much because he's actually a brave person. When confronted with someone he can sense is more powerful than him, Killua becomes arrested by his fear, more prone to give into flight rather than fight. He was being manipulated by his older brother to an extent regarding this trait, using a needle in a part of Killua's brain to exacerbate this trait, but once Killua removes the needle and overcomes its effects, he still possesses extreme, fearful caution—and while he's making a deliberate effort to be better, he's still tempted to run from dangerous or difficult things.

While he isn't above murder morally, and can even enjoy it, Killua doesn't want to be an assassin anymore. He's tired of killing, and while he's easily bored and requires unreasonable and often dangerous stimulation, he wants to live a relatively normal boy's life. He yearns for friends and other types of social warmth the life of a killer just simply does not afford, because at his core, he's a sensitive, loving person.

Being raised as the hopeful heir to the family business is why at age 12, Gon is Killua's first friend—assassins generally aren't encouraged to make these sorts of connections, and in someone young like Killua, it could lead his path astray. Killua first pairs up with Gon simply because they're the same age (in something as deadly as the Hunter exam, mind), but decides he likes Gon sincerely when Gon takes Killua's home life seriously, but isn't put off by it, either. Impressed by his mettle, Killua mutually attaches himself to Gon pretty readily. In time, Killua is infatuated with Gon's way of thinking, and likens him to light itself; in comparison, Killua sees himself as something born of darkness, and feels both grateful and humbled to be Gon's friend. However, this is a pedestal totally of Killua's own invention from his own perceptions of Gon.

Despite being a sometimes bloodthirsty one boy murder factory, Killua is in fact deeply emotional, and struggles dealing with his deeper feelings, since... you know, his family doesn't really do that, so Killua isn't very good at expressing himself. He's intensely loyal to his friends, particularly Gon. In Gon's case, it's to the point of what is eventually a self sacrificing, and honestly rather obsessive, devotion. He does this with no complaint or expectation of reciprocity, which contradicts his first glance disposition of being cocky and demanding. Rather, in the face of those he loves, Killua's self worth becomes completely overshadowed. Gon comes to rely on Killua's willingness to do anything for him without realizing it, and constantly employs it to Killua's detriment (with no ill intent, of course). Killua does not mind.

Killua was also once essentially given a lethal ultimatum by his brother, who he's terrified of—forfeit the battle they were in and spare his own life so that his brother could go murder Gon, or persist the battle with his brother and die because Killua isn't strong enough to defeat him. Turns out after the fact that his brother was bluffing, but Killua chose to spare himself. He feels a lot of guilt over this, which was probably intended on the part of his manipulative brother, who doesn't want Killua to have any friends at all. But Killua made a promise to his father when he was given permission to leave the Zoldyck estate to not betray his friends, which he may have taken as an opportunity to try again to be the good friend he wants to be—thereby strengthening and reinstating his devotion to Gon.

In time, Killua comes to realize some things after a long, traumatic arc. One, he realizes that while Gon loves him truly and rather deeply, the nature of Gon's devotion is different than his own. Killua realizes this when Gon throws away his life, potentially, for vengeance against a sort of stand-in for Gon's shitty, absent father. Killua, meanwhile, has that sort of devotion for Gon himself; Gon's, however, was not reciprocal in that regard. Killua also realizes that he's powerless to protect Gon from his own darkness, which was previously either not there or simply not perceived through Killua's rose-tinted views on Gon.

These are two extremely painful realizations to come to, but Killua thankfully comes into some self awareness about his situation with Gon. He realizes that his friendship with Gon isn't currently good for him, or perhaps either of them, and he redirects his purpose and devotion to someone he selfishly neglected when he first ran away from home: his sister. While Killua and Gon are doing their own thing, it of course doesn't mean their friendship is over; they just need to grow independently rather dependently before they can properly reunite. Killua's worth had become lost within in his deep devotion to Gon, the first friend he'd ever made, so... Killua had no idea how to regulate healthy boundaries. While Killua has had other friends, none were quite his age, and none were quite Gon.

But really, he might just be running away from another hard, scary feeling.


Abilities: Being from a fight cartoon, Killua has a metric butt-ton of specific, named abilities, found in their full detail here. But, a general summation:

Assassin stuff: Near countless abilities inherited from his family, and the general work of being an assassin. This includes turning his fingernails into 1/2 inch long claws by what is mysteriously just referred to as "anatomical manipulation," the ability to walk without sound (which he doesn't even consciously do anymore), which allows him to do "rhythm echo," which is an assassin's trick created by a very specific canter in one's step to create the illusion of multiple's of one's self with after images to confuse the enemy, etc. Those in particular he uses the most prominently.

He's also been tortured since a very young age to strengthen his constitution, and can withstand electrocution (it's implied he can withstand all sorts of torture, but this is the only thing that's been explicitly revealed in canon). For similar reasons, Killua's food has been tainted with a variety of different poisons from a very young age; the current result is that in his world, he's about 95% immune to all known poisons.

As for the general product of being the prodigal heir of the Zoldyck family, that then lends to:

- Basically inhuman strength and speed
- Amazing tracking/stalking efficiency
- Master weapon proficiency
- Knowing how to pilot a blimp, for some reason?
- And drive a car?

Then Killua goes on his merry way to learn "Nen," which is his shounen world's chakra/chi/whatever allegory you wanna make. It's power derived from one's aura/life essence, so in line with martial arts stuff, taken to...a truly ridiculous degree.

Nen stuff: Killua is essentially a novice with Nen, but he's getting there. He's classified as a "transmuter," which means that he can change the properties of his aura. For example, after a lot of training, he's learned how to manipulate his aura into electricity. He had an easier time conjuring it than most people, as he's very familiar with the properties of electricity due to his brutal upbringing. More generally speaking, Killua's learned how to heighten his defense to sustain what would normally kill a normal human (especially one his size), and how to heighten his offense by similar means of aural redistribution. He also can use Nen on his eyes (I know...) to visibly detect the auras of other people. He's also apparently got a rather advanced understanding on how to shift and weaken/strengthen his aura flow around his body with precise timing and calculation, as noted by his teacher, who while amazing herself, only figured that out in what she says was her late 20s.

Back on the subject of his ability to transmute his aura into electricity, Killua's electricity can be pretty nasty; he can severely electrocute people if he attacks them offensively with this ability being used in active practice, even to lasting damage thereafter. However, Killua isn't constantly conducting electricity, and he has to "charge" his aura for a good oomph—for example, one would regret tazing this boy. He also invented what he calls "Godspeed," which is essentially manipulating his own body's capabilities through electricity to be go faster than should really be physically possible. Because shounen, I guess. One facet of Godspeed enables an "empty minded" autopilot, as it enhances his reflexes so incredibly that Killua can conserve a great deal of mental energy in this state.

Alignment: Peromei. Killua struggles with grief, and regret. He's quick to give up when things look bleak, but tenaciously, he never does; when things feel hopeless, he finds a way to redefine his hope. For example, he may not be able to face Gon at the moment, but out of all the negativity and trauma of their recent events, Killua realized he had an opportunity to nurture and care for his sister, and redefine his purpose. While he still has that wound, and still feels it as he learns how to heal, he can look forward to better days.

Other: Killua likes to skateboard and has some yo-yos that apparently weigh 110lb a piece, which makes no sense, but I'm sure this was all very cool when Killua was first written in like...1987.


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
General Sample: One, on bakerstreet, and two, TDM.

Emotion Sample: Bottom of prompt A on TDM toplevel, as well as the bottom of prompt E.