"Do not blame me for what I am made to do. You would not blame a knife for the ones the wielder kills."
B A S I C I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Jian Yu
Gender: Male
Age: 21
Birth-date: 23rd March
Sexuality: Bisexual
Country Affiliation: Kou
Race: Human
A P P E A R A N C E
Height: 5' 10'' | 1.77 m
Weight: 64 Kg | 141.1 lbs
Eye Colour: Brown
Hair Colour: Black
General Appearance: To sum Jian up, he's a normal member of the Kou empire. Or, at least, that's how he looks. As it turns out, Jian goes out of his way to keep up that appearance - smart but not formal clothes, hair kept long and barely styled, and a well-toned physique. Though he's handsome and lithe, he's not handsome enough to stand out in a crowd of others.
As it turns out, this was chosen by Jian to make sure that he attracted as little attention as possible due to his profession of choice. The one thing that does stand out about him is his body language. He's the kind of person who unsettles those who stay in his company for too long by being impossible to read.
If Jian feels anger or sadness, it doesn't show through his body. He walks with a purpose, calm and calculated at all times. Even when killing a target, Jian's cold exterior doesn't seem to drop at all, even frequently smiling during the act. After all, this is the person's last sight, and smiling can be contagious.
P E R S O N A
Personality: Jian, as a person, has a very evolved sense of self. Having had years to come to terms with his job and how he acts, Jian has found comfort in a certain level of self-control, and acts upon a definite code of honour. He refuses to act cruel or cowardly, and makes decisions based on how he knows he will react. He refuses to go back on his decisions, and acts judging on what his moral compass will allow.
That being said, this moral compass is not one that most people would agree with. Jian simply does not have a problem with killing people. Whilst others might feel guilt or shame after performing such an act, Jian finds himself almost detached from the act, making it into an art rather than a crime. He is a painter, countries are his canvas and people are his tools.
Unfortunately, when you do a job like that long enough, you will find yourself having regrets no matter how you act. Jian claims, and would claim under duress, that he regrets more things he failed to do than things he actually did, but he drowns them in booze all the same. After all, sometimes alcohol is your only friend.
The last thing to note about Jian is his strange desires. Having disliked his childhood immensely, he holds a strong contempt for overbearing people in general, and actually holds a very weak spot in his heart for cripples, bastards and broken things, especially when it comes to children.
Likes
- Booze: Well, when your job is literally stealing, breaking and entering or killing people, you will inevitably find yourself attracted to things that make you relax. Being too strong-willed to get into drugs, Jian instead chooses his poison to be alcohol. Though his love for it never damages his work, he spends a lot of his downtime drunk out of his mind.
- Children: Jian, somewhat peculiarly, has a strong affection for children. Especially orphans and homeless children. As they remind him of himself when he was a kid, he spends a fair bit of his money on helping local orphanages. Though, because he often moves because of his job, he tends not to get much thanks.
- Money: Jian was born on the move, and only got to live a decent life after he stole money from a spectator of one of his shows. As such, Jian has a much larger than average affection for the simple dime, to the point of being somewhat stingy in regards to everything but helping children. Thankfully, he's able to take good enough care of himself not to have to get new things that often.
- Respect: Jian comes from a Kou, a land which places a high level of value on the concept of respect and honour. However, due to the fact that his youth was in a travelling circus, Jian places respect on a much higher level than usual. As such, he's often refused to work for clients who hold no respect for those they're paying to do their dirty work.
Dislikes
- Balbadd: This might sound strange for someone who despises racism, but Jian doesn't like Balbadd. Not the people who live there, people are people no matter where they come from, but more the city itself. It's ugly, garish and it just seems to show the worst part of cruelty and ignorance combined.
- Cruelty: There is a difference between a cruel man and a killer. Just because you have to kill someone doesn't mean you have to be cruel about it. Jian has a very bad taste in his mouth when he sees people stretch others' deaths out longer than necessary or making it overly painful. It's just spiteful.
- Murder: Murder and Killing are two completely different things. He gets paid to kill people who've done something in Jian's eyes to deserve it, or is at the very least related to the military ("a man who's willing to kill must be willing to be killed"). However, a true innocent's death is something to be angry about - that, in itself, is murder.
- Racism: Racism is a pointless, stupid act that comes when one person is completely refusing to understand another country's people. It leads to war, to conflict, and to the spilling of innocent bloods. Whilst this might give him more contracts and thus more money, Jian still doesn't like the thought that people are paying for him to kill others just because of stupid prejudice.
Goals
- Danger: Maybe it came about when he was a kid on the ropes, or maybe it came about when he first stole money, but Jian actually enjoys the concept of danger. Harder jobs means better pay, and often Jian will just seek harder jobs just for the thrill that comes with beating dangerous positions. It is, after all, the best proof that he's amazing.
- Freedom: When Jian was a little kid, still serving in his parents' circus, Jian never had freedom. Everything about his day to day life was controlled so that they didn't lose any unnecessary money. As such, freedom is something that Jian clings to very closely and aims to keep as long as he is living.
- Money: Well, as much as he takes harder jobs for the challenge, Jian also has a strong desire for money. Whether it be gold, diamonds, jewels or whatever, Jian loves to be affluent. With this affluence, he can live comfortably and support his pet projects and those he deems worthy of his support.
- Renown: This is going to sound weird for someone in his line of work, but Jian wants to be well known. Or, rather, he doesn't want to be well known but he wants his acts to be. An elusive, unknown spectre who kills monsters and abusive bosses. It always makes him happy when he hears the common folk speaking about his acts, even when they don't like them.
Fears
- Being Caught: Well, Jian IS a criminal. Sure, he's a contract, consulting criminal but that doesn't make him any less of a criminal. Furthermore, due to the sheer amount of crimes under his belt, Jian would probably be executed for his misdeeds. As such, you can imagine why he doesn't like the thought of being caught.
- Failing: What, exactly, do you think would happen to someone who failed to kill someone? First of all, you have to think what the "victim" would do to someone they stopped, then you have to think about what your client would do to you to make sure you didn't speak. As you can imagine, the concept of failing a mission is something that makes Jian shudder.
- Losing Freedom: Freedom is something that appeals to Jian for numerous reasons, and so you can imagine why the concept of losing freedom is terrifying. Though this doesn't mean he's not willing to work under someone, he has to have the assurance that he's free to leave whenever he so wishes. Otherwise, he works alone and chooses his own jobs.
C O M B A T I N F OR M A T I O N
Tier: D
Specialization: Stealth
Rukh Alignment: White
H I S T O R Y
History: Twenty one years ago, in a small tent in the mountains of Kou, a small baby was born into the world. This baby was given the name Jian, and was brought into the embrace of a young couple of acrobats. Unfortunately, this embrace was far from loving.
You see, the Yu clan was a rather famous travelling circus. However, unlike the circuses in other lands, the Yu clan was famous among the lands of Kou for their amazing, death-defying acrobatic tricks. Many of them were natural contortionists, performing things that their body simply shouldn't be able to do, but thankfully Jian wasn't bred into that line of things.
Still, from the moment he could walk, he was expected to be keeping up with his brothers and sisters. The youngest of his line, three years younger than his sister. However, thankfully, the ability seemed to go down through their bloodline, as Jian picked up the skills required very, very quickly.
Though, just because he was good at something didn't mean he liked it. He never got to play with other children outside of his family, and whenever he hurt himself his parents shrugged and chalked it up to a learning experience. This kept adding up throughout his entire childhood until his thirteenth birthday, where something snapped.
On the night of his thirteenth birthday, a prince of Kou came to a show, and showed Jian exactly what he was missing. He was popular, and crude, and was throwing his money around everywhere. Popcorn, bringing women of ill repute, tossing money at people who complained about him being noisy. He truly seemed like a spoiled brat, and Jian snapped internally, his desire to be free culminating with his newfound hatred of this posh, postulating prick.
After the show, the man had clearly become intoxicated and was stumbling home. It was at this time that Jian offered to help him back to his carriage, and the man agreed heartily, not realizing that his "saviour" was only helping him to free him of his coin purse which jingled offensively with every step he took. The man was so drunk that, when the jingling stopped, he didn't even notice. So, the prince was taken into his carriage and rode off into the night.
Amazed at how easily it'd worked, Jian slipped "his" pouch under his bunk's pillow, and began to do the same job over and over again. Smart enough to not rob the same person twice, Jian still somehow managed to become extremely rich within a few months of this activity. However, as he became more and more rich, he seemed to become more and more sloppy, until the night he failed.
Honestly, in the eight years between the event and now, Jian has completely forgotten who he tried to rob from and how he was caught, but what he remembers was his parents reaction. They weren't angry, they weren't even disappointed, they just didn't care. That night they threw him out, not wanting a criminal's name associated with their own, and so Jian was out on the street with nothing to his name.
--
Brought to his knees, cold and alone in the world, many people would have simply quit, lied down and died at that moment. However, Jian's desire for freedom actually seemed to interpret his abandonent as a good thing.
No longer would he be bossed around, no longer would he be a puppet for making money, even if he had to debase himself he was finally free. All he had to do now was make money.
This, however, was the unpleasant thing. With nobody willing to pay money to see one guy perform acrobatics, he quickly found himself performing truly unenviable deeds.
Performing any odd jobs he could within the law, selling his body when he couldn't get enough from odd jobs and stealing from obviously easy marks, he soon began to become more and more well off, able to buy food and clothes for himself to feel more comfortable in his position.
Within year's end, Jian found himself in trouble. He'd apparently chosen a bad mark and had gotten caught by members of a criminal organization in a small mountain village. Anyone else in his position would surely have been killed, but not Jian.
It is still unsure why he got his offer. Was it his youth, still being a little kid at this point? Was it his attitude, his eager desire to do anything to earn forgiveness? Or, maybe it was simply that his captors felt especially generous that day. Either way, they gave him a simple offer - kill the mayor of the town without being caught and they'd let him go free.
Now, at first, Jian was horrified at this concept. He'd never killed someone before, it was against god. Surely he'd be punished for his misdeed. Unfortunately, it was clear that he had no other choice, so he began to put his wit to the task. If he was going to have to do this, he was at least going to do this well.
As the town was small and the mayor unsuspecting, there weren't even any guards on the old man's house. In the middle of night during a rain-storm, Jian sneaked in through a window, towering over the old man. Grabbing a pillow, he pressed it down on the man's face, quickly suffocating him in his sleep. Whether the man had awoken during the attack, Jian still doesn't know. His face was completely hidden by the pillow after all.
The next day, the gang delivered on their word, allowing him to go free. However, before they did, they gave him the offer of another strike. Jian's heart was divided - on one hand, the reward they were offering was very great, but on the other hand this was still murder. He didn't feel happy about having to kill the old guy, even though it'd saved his life. So, what was he to do?
Over the next few days, as he considered his options, he walked among the village people and was surprised to hear people's happiness at the death of the mayor. Apparently, he had been cruel and had taxed them to the end, often leaving people without enough money to buy medicine. The man, old or not, had been a bastard. Why should he feel guilty about killing a bastard? With that, he began to research his next contract, accepting after finding out the man's treatment of his workers.
---
The next eight years passed as you can imagine. Jian quickly began to become skilled in his line of work, and was even offered multiple contracts at once. It was at this time he began to pick and choose his victims, forming the moral compass towards his acts that he still carries with him today.
His skills got sharper and sharper with each passing years, and his tools became all the more impressive. Going from a pillow to poison, throwing knives, and eventually even choosing his weapon of choice - a pair of fan blades with a metal chassis that allowed him to pretend to seduce his victims before giving them a quick and painless death.
In the underworld, he became more and more infamous. Or, rather, his alias did. Simply going by the title, yanyuan (or "The acrobat"), his deeds became spoken of across various different lands, killing princes, nobles, heads of companies, even simply soldiers who'd attacked villages. Every victim was chosen and identified as someone the world was better off without.
This is how it's come to the modern day, with Jian travelling around the world, performing his favourite line of work. Whenever someone needs bumping off, he's always willing to lend a hand... and a nice little flick of a fan.
RP Sample: Jobs, no matter what the job is, is simply a job. After a while, they become a menial task. At least, this was the way with the majority of the world. Jian, on the other hand, honestly believed that to keep your pride in a work you had to take a certain level of pride in it. You had to strive to do your best in every given situation.
That was precisely why he was here today. The ball was a fabulous thing, with people from countries all over the world dancing together in a form of peace. It was a shame, therefore, that he was going to have to ruin it. You see, these people were more than happy being peaceful with each other, but many of them were nowhere near as peaceful when it came to the average person.
Jian smiled wickedly inside as he looked upon the faces of those dotted around him; Generals, heads of companies, even a prince or two. These people were the very figureheads of nations, and were he to kill just one of them the other countries would devolve into accusations and verbal conflict. So, instead, he would have to make it clear that nobody here was to blame. As such, he had done something rather.... drastic.
You see, the host of the party had on his staff a rather skilled brew-master. His ales were known throughout many lands and many people, and almost everyone here was certain to want some. Jian, however, was the only one who wouldn't. This was because he knew something that nobody else did, and that secret held its place in a little red container in his inner pocket. Or, rather, had held its place there until he'd had a nice word with a waiter.
Feigning an untimely spot of illness, Jian left the room silently and peacefully, before taking a right rather than a left and slipping down the flight of stairs towards the exit. With the waiter sitting comfortably on his laurels, having been gifted a nice little coin-purse, Jian was far away before anyone even had a sup of that fated brew.
Not that anyone would be able to tell that it was the brew that was the cause of the problem; the symptoms wouldn't present themselves for another week.
Face-claim: Wao Yang (China) - Hetalia
Message [Page 1 of 1]
