Post by Kuja on Jul 26, 2015 1:20:33 GMT -6
Kuja
"Peace is but a shadow of death, desperate to forget its painful past."
I. BASICS
FULL NAME:: Kuja
NICKNAMES::
GENDER:: Male
AGE:: 24
ORIENTATION:: Bisexual
ALLIGNMENT:: Chaotic
EQUIPMENT:: Maiden Prayer
NICKNAMES::
GENDER:: Male
AGE:: 24
ORIENTATION:: Bisexual
ALLIGNMENT:: Chaotic
EQUIPMENT:: Maiden Prayer
HEIGHT:: 5'11"
HAIR/EYES/SKIN:: Silver hair, light blue eyes, skin like porcelain
DISTINGUISHING MARKS:: Deceptively feminine with womanly features such as hips and an eye-shadow angled in vivid orange. Silver feathers mingle among his hair, and though he will never acknowledge it, he hides a silver tail in a pocket of his skirt.
II. PERSONA
Kuja presents himself as the most charming of noblemen. He is highly well-mannered, carries himself properly, and would never think to break the social contracts of high society. To the noblewoman, Kuja need only to offer his most perfect smile and muse on sweet nothings to edge his way into her good graces. He could speak equally well on politics, town gossip, or the latest work of the local theater. When necessary, he becomes nothing but the most pleasant of gentlemen, eager to carry out the honor of his acquaintances and country.
In reality, Kuja cares only for himself. While he is more than capable of pretending otherwise, he would not bat an eye at meaningless death and takes joy only in victory, poetry, and hedonism. He prefers to work through manipulation rather than brute force. Brilliant, sadistic, and cunning, Kuja is capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. Kuja believes that the strong are justified in their harm of the weak. -- it is the indisputable nature of the world, and he is at no fault for exploiting it.
Despite his aggression, Kuja acts mostly out of defense. As an artificially created Genome, Kuja has never had any autonomy over his fate and has been forced into the servitude of his creator since birth. His creator's insistence on Kuja's submission gave Kuja a rising streak of rebellion while a strict expectation to conform gave Kuja a desperation to prove himself unique. In fact, Kuja has dedicated most of his life to being absolutely contrary to everything expected of him.
Deep down, Kuja's life is ruled by fear. Though he will never acknowledge it, he hates himself for being so like those soulless golems he grew up among. More than anything, he fears the loss of his soul. Since a young age, he has known that his creator believes him defective, and he knows how his creator handles defects. This fear has driven Kuja to spread death and suffering across all of Gaia -- partially to appease his creator and partially to find some means to save himself.
Without any love given to him as a child and estranged from the people of an alien planet, Kuja has never had a single friend. Kuja would rather destroy the world than die alone simply for the fact that there is nothing in the world worth saving.
In reality, Kuja cares only for himself. While he is more than capable of pretending otherwise, he would not bat an eye at meaningless death and takes joy only in victory, poetry, and hedonism. He prefers to work through manipulation rather than brute force. Brilliant, sadistic, and cunning, Kuja is capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. Kuja believes that the strong are justified in their harm of the weak. -- it is the indisputable nature of the world, and he is at no fault for exploiting it.
Despite his aggression, Kuja acts mostly out of defense. As an artificially created Genome, Kuja has never had any autonomy over his fate and has been forced into the servitude of his creator since birth. His creator's insistence on Kuja's submission gave Kuja a rising streak of rebellion while a strict expectation to conform gave Kuja a desperation to prove himself unique. In fact, Kuja has dedicated most of his life to being absolutely contrary to everything expected of him.
Deep down, Kuja's life is ruled by fear. Though he will never acknowledge it, he hates himself for being so like those soulless golems he grew up among. More than anything, he fears the loss of his soul. Since a young age, he has known that his creator believes him defective, and he knows how his creator handles defects. This fear has driven Kuja to spread death and suffering across all of Gaia -- partially to appease his creator and partially to find some means to save himself.
Without any love given to him as a child and estranged from the people of an alien planet, Kuja has never had a single friend. Kuja would rather destroy the world than die alone simply for the fact that there is nothing in the world worth saving.
III. HISTORY
Kuja began his life on the planet Terra. After the planet had driven itself to destruction, it sought a new source of life, and in its search came across the youthful world of Gaia. The surviving Terrans sent their souls to a hibernating stasis kept under the watchful eye of the immortal Garland. Over the next several thousand years, Terra would filter the souls of Gaia into its own spiritual ecosystem. As Terra strengthened to support life, Garland saw it fit to begin the manufacturing of vessels for the dormant souls to inhabit. Thus, he created a race of soulless Genomes to await the assimilation of the two planets and the revival of Terra.
Kuja was one such Genome. He does not know for how long his vessel existed without him nor does he quite remember the experience of awakening. He does, however, understand his purpose with utmost clarity. "You are to bring destruction to the world of Gaia and hasten the regulation of souls upon that planet." Yes, he remembers his task quite well -- and how could he not with it drilled into his subconscious for every waking moment of his early life? It is what he was trained for in agonizing tests of his survival against Garland's wrath. It is what he studied the people of Gaia so closely for, day after day, month after month as he regulated the processes of the Iifa Tree and marveled at the feel of wind and the motion of water on a planet that had not died. In the end, it was also what he was given life for. Garland made that perfectly clear.
So clear, in fact, that when Garland made another -- another in the image of those new models of Genome he had become so fond of -- with not only the same task, but with a soul, Kuja knew that his own life had become redundant. He tolerated the other Genome for as long as he could. A nail-biting, soul-crushing, irritable four years of peace. Kuja would return to Terra after weeks of slaving in the name of Garland only to be greeted by the screaming, idiotic blabbering of a child. He was told the child had a name, though Kuja couldn't see what Zidane could have done to deserve it. The child was a small, weak, helpless, moronic, aggravating waste of life that Kuja could have murdered with a snap of his fingers.
Zidane was also his greatest threat.
In a world of manufactured life and the constant march of progress towards a perfect vessel, Kuja could see Zidane as nothing more than his own replacement. It was for this reason that Kuja called down his trusted silver dragon and brought the child upon it for a ride to that doomed planet, Gaia. He had planned to simply kill the child once out of Garland's omnipresent view, but after landing a short while away from the industrial city of Lindblum, Kuja found that he simply could not call the magic that would end Zidane's life. Perhaps it was out of fear of Garland. Perhaps it was simply too much effort. Less likely was the possibility that Kuja had somehow grown a fondness for the child -- though he knew that couldn't be true. Still, he ended up returning to Terra alone, and Zidane was left to die in the wilderness of Gaia.
As expected, Garland was furious and after some merciless discipline, he banished Kuja from his home planet. It wasn't as though Kuja minded, really. How amusing it was that Garland would seal the entrance to Terra with four medallions guarded by five elemental spirits! How humorous that Kuja would be considered such a threat that he was forced to survive alone on a strange planet at only the age of twelve! How darkly ironic it was that even after being banished, Kuja was still expected to work for the very right to his own survival. Kuja wasn't bothered by it. Not really. After all, who needed a home so dull and lifeless as his?
To make a very long story short, Kuja learned the ways of Gaia and charmed his way into the noble courts of first Treno and then Alexandria. He studied the mannerisms of the upper class, trained himself in the art of manipulation, and quickly wrapped the entire royal class around his finger. He sought the massacre of Gaian souls on Garland's orders while secretly harboring another goal for himself. Garland feared the eidolons -- that was made clear by his feud against the summoners -- and Kuja had found the most powerful of them all hiding dormant in the palace of Alexandria. Surely, Alexander would allow Kuja to defeat Garland and take his own freedom. So he went about a most successful campaign of genocide in the hopes of gathering each piece of Alexander's summon stone until he could awaken the slumbering spirit and bend it to his will.
After twelve years, Zidane's survival should have troubled him. In truth, Zidane posed no threat to anything. Zidane lumbered his way into Kuja's lair, and Kuja used him to gain access to a most important magical location found at the base of Mount Gulug. He also used Zidane and his idiot friends to open the long-closed portal to Terra. Once there, they even took the liberty of defeating Garland. After absorbing the restless souls of the dead, Kuja easily brought Zidane to his knees and did away with his creator. Everything was as it should be.
Only it wasn't. Just as Kuja came so close to finally gaining both freedom and power, Garland's wandering soul informed him that he had never been meant to live past his usefulness. It would not be karma or Kuja own mistakes that doomed him -- but his creator's design.
Kuja had never stood a chance.
After that was a blur of righteous retribution, destroyed planets, and dimensional rifts. Kuja sought to end all life with him. Zidane followed and sought to stop him. As it turned it, Zidane had been the hero of this story all along, and Kuja -- the villain. Kuja called upon his greatest powers to destroy them and then fell through space and time into the thorny branches of an angry tree. This was where he would die, he thought, and so his rage was quelled. In a sudden change of heart, he used the last of his magic to teleport Zidane and his friends to safety. As he felt them leave, he could not help but reach out for one last message: "Farewell, Zidane."
What followed, Kuja would never understand. Zidane, though nearly killed by Kuja thrice before, felt compelled to leave his friends behind and journey into the tree to save him. In their moments together, Zidane did not act angry or offended, but sympathetic and understanding. It was something that Kuja had never known before, and even as his life left him, he felt a strange protection of the boy that might have been called his brother. As the vines closed in around them, he used the last dregs of his magic to teleport them blindly away.
Kuja had not expected to live. As it turned out, his communication with the newest Genome -- a young girl named Mikoto -- paid out in his interest. She found both Zidane and Kuja sprawled unconscious in the wastes of the Outer Continent. When Kuja awoke, he had been brought back to the village of the Black Mages that he had created, used, and abused so often. Kuja wanted mostly to be left alone as he recovered, although he tolerated Zidane's presence and Zidane's alone.
Even after his recovery, Kuja was mostly quiet, introspective, and astute. Despite his insistence to the contrary, Zidane did not leave him. Kuja called him an idiot for abandoning his friends. He called Zidane every name he could think of -- which was quite a few, considering his literacy -- but Zidane merely suffered it with a grin and stayed regardless. Though he would never say it, Kuja appreciated this more than Zidane would ever know.
Kuja died in relative peace a year and a half later. When Zidane finally did return, he would never tell his friends what had kept him away for so long.
Kuja was one such Genome. He does not know for how long his vessel existed without him nor does he quite remember the experience of awakening. He does, however, understand his purpose with utmost clarity. "You are to bring destruction to the world of Gaia and hasten the regulation of souls upon that planet." Yes, he remembers his task quite well -- and how could he not with it drilled into his subconscious for every waking moment of his early life? It is what he was trained for in agonizing tests of his survival against Garland's wrath. It is what he studied the people of Gaia so closely for, day after day, month after month as he regulated the processes of the Iifa Tree and marveled at the feel of wind and the motion of water on a planet that had not died. In the end, it was also what he was given life for. Garland made that perfectly clear.
So clear, in fact, that when Garland made another -- another in the image of those new models of Genome he had become so fond of -- with not only the same task, but with a soul, Kuja knew that his own life had become redundant. He tolerated the other Genome for as long as he could. A nail-biting, soul-crushing, irritable four years of peace. Kuja would return to Terra after weeks of slaving in the name of Garland only to be greeted by the screaming, idiotic blabbering of a child. He was told the child had a name, though Kuja couldn't see what Zidane could have done to deserve it. The child was a small, weak, helpless, moronic, aggravating waste of life that Kuja could have murdered with a snap of his fingers.
Zidane was also his greatest threat.
In a world of manufactured life and the constant march of progress towards a perfect vessel, Kuja could see Zidane as nothing more than his own replacement. It was for this reason that Kuja called down his trusted silver dragon and brought the child upon it for a ride to that doomed planet, Gaia. He had planned to simply kill the child once out of Garland's omnipresent view, but after landing a short while away from the industrial city of Lindblum, Kuja found that he simply could not call the magic that would end Zidane's life. Perhaps it was out of fear of Garland. Perhaps it was simply too much effort. Less likely was the possibility that Kuja had somehow grown a fondness for the child -- though he knew that couldn't be true. Still, he ended up returning to Terra alone, and Zidane was left to die in the wilderness of Gaia.
As expected, Garland was furious and after some merciless discipline, he banished Kuja from his home planet. It wasn't as though Kuja minded, really. How amusing it was that Garland would seal the entrance to Terra with four medallions guarded by five elemental spirits! How humorous that Kuja would be considered such a threat that he was forced to survive alone on a strange planet at only the age of twelve! How darkly ironic it was that even after being banished, Kuja was still expected to work for the very right to his own survival. Kuja wasn't bothered by it. Not really. After all, who needed a home so dull and lifeless as his?
To make a very long story short, Kuja learned the ways of Gaia and charmed his way into the noble courts of first Treno and then Alexandria. He studied the mannerisms of the upper class, trained himself in the art of manipulation, and quickly wrapped the entire royal class around his finger. He sought the massacre of Gaian souls on Garland's orders while secretly harboring another goal for himself. Garland feared the eidolons -- that was made clear by his feud against the summoners -- and Kuja had found the most powerful of them all hiding dormant in the palace of Alexandria. Surely, Alexander would allow Kuja to defeat Garland and take his own freedom. So he went about a most successful campaign of genocide in the hopes of gathering each piece of Alexander's summon stone until he could awaken the slumbering spirit and bend it to his will.
After twelve years, Zidane's survival should have troubled him. In truth, Zidane posed no threat to anything. Zidane lumbered his way into Kuja's lair, and Kuja used him to gain access to a most important magical location found at the base of Mount Gulug. He also used Zidane and his idiot friends to open the long-closed portal to Terra. Once there, they even took the liberty of defeating Garland. After absorbing the restless souls of the dead, Kuja easily brought Zidane to his knees and did away with his creator. Everything was as it should be.
Only it wasn't. Just as Kuja came so close to finally gaining both freedom and power, Garland's wandering soul informed him that he had never been meant to live past his usefulness. It would not be karma or Kuja own mistakes that doomed him -- but his creator's design.
Kuja had never stood a chance.
After that was a blur of righteous retribution, destroyed planets, and dimensional rifts. Kuja sought to end all life with him. Zidane followed and sought to stop him. As it turned it, Zidane had been the hero of this story all along, and Kuja -- the villain. Kuja called upon his greatest powers to destroy them and then fell through space and time into the thorny branches of an angry tree. This was where he would die, he thought, and so his rage was quelled. In a sudden change of heart, he used the last of his magic to teleport Zidane and his friends to safety. As he felt them leave, he could not help but reach out for one last message: "Farewell, Zidane."
What followed, Kuja would never understand. Zidane, though nearly killed by Kuja thrice before, felt compelled to leave his friends behind and journey into the tree to save him. In their moments together, Zidane did not act angry or offended, but sympathetic and understanding. It was something that Kuja had never known before, and even as his life left him, he felt a strange protection of the boy that might have been called his brother. As the vines closed in around them, he used the last dregs of his magic to teleport them blindly away.
Kuja had not expected to live. As it turned out, his communication with the newest Genome -- a young girl named Mikoto -- paid out in his interest. She found both Zidane and Kuja sprawled unconscious in the wastes of the Outer Continent. When Kuja awoke, he had been brought back to the village of the Black Mages that he had created, used, and abused so often. Kuja wanted mostly to be left alone as he recovered, although he tolerated Zidane's presence and Zidane's alone.
Even after his recovery, Kuja was mostly quiet, introspective, and astute. Despite his insistence to the contrary, Zidane did not leave him. Kuja called him an idiot for abandoning his friends. He called Zidane every name he could think of -- which was quite a few, considering his literacy -- but Zidane merely suffered it with a grin and stayed regardless. Though he would never say it, Kuja appreciated this more than Zidane would ever know.
Kuja died in relative peace a year and a half later. When Zidane finally did return, he would never tell his friends what had kept him away for so long.
IV. AUTHOR
PLAYER ALIAS:: Fin
OTHER CHARACTERS::
ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIENCE:: ...A lot. Ten years, I think?
HOW YOU FOUND US:: Advertisement on the FF Cosplayers Facebook Group
NOTES FOR CONSIDERATION:: I haven't roleplayed in a forum for a while, so I'll try to keep up. I also haven't used Proboards since 2006. It has changed considerably since then, so please bear with my apparent stupidity. Um...Also, since I just wrote a short novel up there on his history, I'm going to submit a section of one of my fanfictions as the sample. I hope that's okay since I use two characters in it. I promise I know how roleplays work!
ROLE-PLAY SAMPLE::
"Kuja!"
He came traipsing through the open doors, past her leotard-clad guards, and onto the torch-lit balcony where his caller was waiting. From here, one could capture the perfect view of this noble city, from its distant walls to the most menial of alleys. Tonight, it was a perfect display of the reckless damage of a fugitive airship. Entire roofs scraped to nothing, walls broken, stone crumbled, buildings destroyed. And on that horizon, cast in the black of a shadowed night, the culprits had fled unapprehended. For now, at least.
He trailed down the steps and sunk into a gracious bow at the loathsome creature before him, the most hideous woman he had ever set eyes upon, the bane of his noble existence:
"Your Majesty…"
The queen's piggy little eyes pitted to him. The folds of her neck turned to get a better look at him over the wave of her fan.
"You said that I needed her power."
The statement came brash, accusing with the kind of subtlety that only an elephant could achieve. Kuja rose from his bow and smiled.
"My black mages and your more…conventional soldiers should be more than enough for the dragon knights of Burmecia. Lindblum and Cleyra, however, would prove a more difficult obstacle."
"Grrraugh!" The monarch wailed with a flail of her struggling fan, the second of the night. "I'm so close! So close!" She tossed her fan to the side and slumped in her throne. "This had better be solved."
"My lady…" He gave her a sweeping bow, the kind she was so fond of with the flourish of his flowing sleeves and a soft flip of his hair. "I have already set my Black Waltzes on their trail."
She paused in her brooding then slowly looked up to him, eyes shining with swinish glee. "…Black Waltzes?"
"Ah, yes," Kuja smiled with the air of a trader handing a child a toy, "My newest model of black mage, endowed with the reason necessary for the most complicated of tasks, yet still entirely enslaved to order."
"Oh!" The monarch clapped her hands in infantile glee, the flesh smacking together with the clap of tenderizing meat, "And how many will you have for me?"
"As many as you desire."
"Oh Kuja, you are too good to me!"
The merchant smiled then stepped forward and took her malformed hand in the delicate curves of his own. A warm stench rose from the folds of her body -- the sour odor of sweat and decay mixed with the stale sweetness of foreign perfume. Without the slightest flinch or moment's hesitation, Kuja bowed lower, raised her hand, and touched his lips to her fingers.
"Nothing is too high a cost for you, my lady."
"Oh, Kuja…" she giggled, appraising the glow of his skin and the perfect curves of his body. She reached out to brush the hair which had fallen to his cheek.
He looked up to her from where he kneeled, hands still clasped around hers, so close he needed barely more than whisper. "You will take the world, my lady."
"Oh yes!"
"Burmecia, Lindblum…"
"And Cleyra!"
He smiled. "Very good."
"All of it will be mine!"
"As it shall." He brushed the back of her hand then stood and stepped back towards the railing.
"Don't you want to come closer?" she asked with a thrust of the mottled engorgement of flesh she called a lower lip. He laughed almost seductively, but with a hand before his mouth to hide his genuine amusement.
"I am hardly worthy of such excellent affections as yours, my queen," he replied with only the most untraceable taste of sarcasm. She deepened the dedication of her pout with a cross of her arms.
"Don't be a tease!" she complained, but he shook his head and brushed a strand of hair behind his ear.
"I'm afraid I do not have the time nor the position to properly satisfy you, my lady," he excused, "But if you wish me to begin work on my latest prototypes…"
"Yes! Yes go!" Her eyes widened in excitement, almost rounding past the flesh that encased them. "Go hurry on my new weapons!"
He bade her farewell with an elegant, sweeping bow that so nearly touched her fingers to his. She giggled again and began musing happily as he turned and glided up the stairs. He sauntered down the palace halls with a lofty elegance and a soft sway to his hips, drawing any eyes that happened to meet him, daring any to call out his ingenuity.
It was not until he reached the privacy of his room that he allowed himself to cringe.
OTHER CHARACTERS::
ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIENCE:: ...A lot. Ten years, I think?
HOW YOU FOUND US:: Advertisement on the FF Cosplayers Facebook Group
NOTES FOR CONSIDERATION:: I haven't roleplayed in a forum for a while, so I'll try to keep up. I also haven't used Proboards since 2006. It has changed considerably since then, so please bear with my apparent stupidity. Um...Also, since I just wrote a short novel up there on his history, I'm going to submit a section of one of my fanfictions as the sample. I hope that's okay since I use two characters in it. I promise I know how roleplays work!
ROLE-PLAY SAMPLE::
"Kuja!"
He came traipsing through the open doors, past her leotard-clad guards, and onto the torch-lit balcony where his caller was waiting. From here, one could capture the perfect view of this noble city, from its distant walls to the most menial of alleys. Tonight, it was a perfect display of the reckless damage of a fugitive airship. Entire roofs scraped to nothing, walls broken, stone crumbled, buildings destroyed. And on that horizon, cast in the black of a shadowed night, the culprits had fled unapprehended. For now, at least.
He trailed down the steps and sunk into a gracious bow at the loathsome creature before him, the most hideous woman he had ever set eyes upon, the bane of his noble existence:
"Your Majesty…"
The queen's piggy little eyes pitted to him. The folds of her neck turned to get a better look at him over the wave of her fan.
"You said that I needed her power."
The statement came brash, accusing with the kind of subtlety that only an elephant could achieve. Kuja rose from his bow and smiled.
"My black mages and your more…conventional soldiers should be more than enough for the dragon knights of Burmecia. Lindblum and Cleyra, however, would prove a more difficult obstacle."
"Grrraugh!" The monarch wailed with a flail of her struggling fan, the second of the night. "I'm so close! So close!" She tossed her fan to the side and slumped in her throne. "This had better be solved."
"My lady…" He gave her a sweeping bow, the kind she was so fond of with the flourish of his flowing sleeves and a soft flip of his hair. "I have already set my Black Waltzes on their trail."
She paused in her brooding then slowly looked up to him, eyes shining with swinish glee. "…Black Waltzes?"
"Ah, yes," Kuja smiled with the air of a trader handing a child a toy, "My newest model of black mage, endowed with the reason necessary for the most complicated of tasks, yet still entirely enslaved to order."
"Oh!" The monarch clapped her hands in infantile glee, the flesh smacking together with the clap of tenderizing meat, "And how many will you have for me?"
"As many as you desire."
"Oh Kuja, you are too good to me!"
The merchant smiled then stepped forward and took her malformed hand in the delicate curves of his own. A warm stench rose from the folds of her body -- the sour odor of sweat and decay mixed with the stale sweetness of foreign perfume. Without the slightest flinch or moment's hesitation, Kuja bowed lower, raised her hand, and touched his lips to her fingers.
"Nothing is too high a cost for you, my lady."
"Oh, Kuja…" she giggled, appraising the glow of his skin and the perfect curves of his body. She reached out to brush the hair which had fallen to his cheek.
He looked up to her from where he kneeled, hands still clasped around hers, so close he needed barely more than whisper. "You will take the world, my lady."
"Oh yes!"
"Burmecia, Lindblum…"
"And Cleyra!"
He smiled. "Very good."
"All of it will be mine!"
"As it shall." He brushed the back of her hand then stood and stepped back towards the railing.
"Don't you want to come closer?" she asked with a thrust of the mottled engorgement of flesh she called a lower lip. He laughed almost seductively, but with a hand before his mouth to hide his genuine amusement.
"I am hardly worthy of such excellent affections as yours, my queen," he replied with only the most untraceable taste of sarcasm. She deepened the dedication of her pout with a cross of her arms.
"Don't be a tease!" she complained, but he shook his head and brushed a strand of hair behind his ear.
"I'm afraid I do not have the time nor the position to properly satisfy you, my lady," he excused, "But if you wish me to begin work on my latest prototypes…"
"Yes! Yes go!" Her eyes widened in excitement, almost rounding past the flesh that encased them. "Go hurry on my new weapons!"
He bade her farewell with an elegant, sweeping bow that so nearly touched her fingers to his. She giggled again and began musing happily as he turned and glided up the stairs. He sauntered down the palace halls with a lofty elegance and a soft sway to his hips, drawing any eyes that happened to meet him, daring any to call out his ingenuity.
It was not until he reached the privacy of his room that he allowed himself to cringe.
