Post by Affectionate Zombie on Aug 3, 2008 12:22:40 GMT -5
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FULL NAME.
NICKNAMES.
SEX.
AGE.
DATE OF BIRTH.
PLACE OF BIRTH.
ETHNICITY.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
FAMILY.
AMBITION.
APPEARANCE.
PERSONALITY.
HISTORY.
SINCE THEN...
HOW'D YOU GET HERE?
FULL NAME.
Darby Leonel Hughes.
NICKNAMES.
He doesn't like nicknames, and to date has not been called anything that wasn't his name or an insult -- though if anyone can think of a good nickname for him, they can feel free to give it a try. He just probably won't care for it.
SEX.
Male, lucky for him. He'd have some serious self-loathing issues if he wasn't.
AGE.
Eighteen.
DATE OF BIRTH.
May 12th, 1991. The ironic thing? He hates flowers and is even mildly allergic to them; they give him the sniffles.
PLACE OF BIRTH.
Darby was born and raised in a shady little shit-hole of a town called Umerin. It's located in the far-off Lacara Region, and it's filled to the brim with the scum of the earth: criminals, gamblers, druggies, drunks, whores, and just bad people. It's not a nice place, so it makes sense that he's not a nice kid.
ETHNICITY.
His father is roughly half-Spanish with the other half being a huge muddled mess of genes, and his mother is mostly of African descent, though Darby wouldn't know that. Note that he does speak Spanish fluently enough to communicate in the language, but that he doesn't have much of an accent at all and that he speaks far English better than Spanish.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
Now, see, here's the thing: Darby is ridiculously sexist and hates women. Regardless of personality, appearance, age, or even species (female Pokémon will be abhorred as much as female humans), he hates them. So, if he were to be interested in a relationship at all, it'd have to be with a guy. Fat chance of any relationships being sprung with Darby, though, or so it seems. The kid's a brat.
FAMILY.
x Father; Reno Hughes, age thirty-nine
x Mother; Loretta Torres, age thirty-six. Location/status unknown.
x Half-brother; Marx Torres, age fourteen. Darby doesn't even know that this kid exists.
AMBITION.
Org. Nox member, baby. Currently a grunt.
APPEARANCE.
It's funny, really. Darby carries himself the way a big, strong fella might; confidence exudes from him in waves, and his steps have a haughty swagger to them, his head usually held high (unless, of course, he's sneaking around) and his expression smug or condescending. Such a walk might be intimidating on someone large and powerful, but... on Darby, who is five feet tall almost exactly and scrawny, it looks ridiculous and comical. He's like a particularly feisty chihuahua, sort of, the type that doesn't seem to realize how size can matter -- or even realize how small he actually is. "Just because I'm kinda tiny don't mean I can't kick your ass!" Yeah, right.
Basically, Darby thinks he's a tough guy, when everything about his appearance suggests otherwise. On top of his less-than-impressive build, he has a very young, boyish, heart-shaped face: plump, pouty lips; huge, expressive, alert eyes (made particularly interesting by their coloration, for the right eye is a brown-hazel color and the left eye is pale green); light brown skin, a button nose, and thin eyebrows. He'd be a cute kid -- kid, not man, for he simply looks too young to be any older than perhaps fifteen, even if he's actually a few years older than that -- if not for the rather nasty expressions he usually wears. Sneers and scowls and smirks are what one will typically see on Darby's mug, and it makes an otherwise nice face look ugly. Such awful expressions just don't suit his features.
Somewhat hiding that boyish face of his, however, is his wild mane of black-brown hair. His whole head is covered in tight, tight curls that twist all the way down to just a bit below his chin, and it's an awful, frizzy mess that poofs out and looks about as unruly as it is -- which is very. Straightening his hair might solve the problem, but hell if Darby's going to waste his time doing something so girly.
As a matter of fact, Darby doesn't put forth much effort with his appearance at all. His outfits are picked with little thought and typically consist of a tee-shirt, sometimes too small or too large, and a pair of jeans (usually too big) with some old, beaten-up sneakers. He's not the most well-off kid in the world, and a lack of money means that he can't be too picky or fancy with his outfits. The only thing Darby wears that looks somewhat valuable is a necklace; from a thin, gold chain hangs an Amulet Coin. He firmly believes that this item will make him rich one day, though so far, it hasn't done him much good.
PERSONALITY.
Darby does his very best to appear tough and intimidating. He speaks in a way that makes him sound almost as if he were snarling, and every word he says tends to be harsh and clipped short. Curse words and insults will be laced in with nearly every sentences, as well -- guaranteed. He's a profane, nasty little thing, violent and easily-angered and ridiculously rude. Darby is the type of person to go out of his way just to mock someone, to prove his "superiority" or to make their lives suck a bit more.
Yes, he's a cocky little thing, that's for sure. He firmly believes that he's a tough, badass motherfucker, strong and smart and, above all else, better than you. You'd be hard-pressed to change his mind on that, too; he's more hard-headed than a Shieldon and more stubborn than a Primeape. Once he's decided something or set his mind to a cause, he'll refuse to change his mind or opinions or goals, sometimes out of stubbornness but also quite often out of pride. (He hates to admit when he can't do something or when he's wrong.)
All of his cockiness and bullheadedness, as well as his nasty temper that tends to make him rush into certain situations without thinking and do generally unwise things, may color him to be a fool. In truth, though, he's smarter than he lets on. He gets ahead of himself and tends to follow his gut and his impulses more than he should, but when he's careful to stay focused and controlled, he can be very sneaky and cunning. No, he's not wise; far from it. He's simply street-smart, and a real snake when he puts his mind to it.
Even so, all of Darby's insufferable behavior cannot be justified by a little bit of slyness. He's not nearly as good as he thinks he is. True, he's no coward, but he's a weakling and a weasel, usually cheating and lying and lurking in the background instead of charging right into the fray -- when he's thinking with his brain and not his temper, that is. It's a smart tactic, truthfully, since he's physically weak and better at sneaking than he is at fighting (though he can swing a mean punch), but it makes him seem like a slimy, sneaky rat instead of a sly, cunning fox.
As a matter of fact, he is more like the rat than the fox; he acts quite a lot like he has no morals at all. He'll lie about something incredibly serious without batting a lash, will happily steal something if he can't get it by more honest means, will tear someone apart with harsh words just for the fun of it, and would sacrifice a friend just to save his own hide. He is selfish. He is immoral. More than anything else, though, he's power-hungry. He strives, hungers for authority and prestige and strength, and would kill to be in a real position of power. Pokémon and Organization Nox are, according to Darby's half-formulated plans, going to be the tools to acquiring this power he so craves... though it still remains to be seen if he's competent enough to get away with it.
But he has a decent side, believe it or not.
On occasion, Darby will prove that he does have a heart in him somewhere. He won't admit it, but he feels bad about some of the things that he does, and sometimes he'll do something or behave in a way that is decidedly nice, which is surprising to most people. He also is fiercely loyal if someone manages to earn his trust. (Arceus knows how they'd manage that.) Though he still feels as though he has to act tough and nasty even if the only company he has are his Pok?mon, when he's totally and completely alone and in a quiet, peaceful environment, he can be surprisingly pleasant. People stress him out, but solitude and silence allow him to cool off and just relax for once, something he never feels he can do when forced to interact with someone else; when in the presence of another person (or a Pok?mon), he seems to think that he always needs to prove his "dominance" and "superiority." It's exhausting, having to be so aggressive all the time -- though that makes it seem like he doesn't have a choice, and he does. If someone is lucky enough to catch him when he's feeling worn out and lazy, they'll be surprised to discover that he has moods in which he just can't bring himself to act like a dick nearly as much as usual. He gets tired with his own bad behavior almost as much as everyone who has to deal with it regularly.
What he really needs is, first and foremost, a good ol' stab at his overinflated ego. If he stopped thinking he was so awesome, maybe he wouldn't need to prove it all the time. Perhaps a calming factor wouldn't hurt either, though; having someone or something around to cool his jets whenever he starts to get agitated or aggravated would probably work wonders for that temper of his.
HISTORY.
His story isn't one that's terribly out-of-the-ordinary, considering where he was born and raised. Sure, it's not pleasant, but that doesn't bother him any. Everyone else he's ever bothered to know has had similar stories to tell, so while he's well aware that there are plenty of people who've come from nice homes in nice neighborhoods with nice backgrounds and happy lives, he's also quite sure that for each person with a quaint little tale to tell about their childhoods, there're two who were born and raised in a place just like or similar to Darby's Umerin Town.
Umerin was a nasty little place, nestled deep inside the Lacara Region. It was a dark, shady town filled with the worst of the worst: ex-cons, dealers, thieves, con-artists, and all sorts of other criminals and thugs. Even the Gym Leader in the town was a shady, scary sort of guy, and overall it was the sort of place that most travelers tried to avoid or dash through quickly. The only roses to stop and smell in Umerin Town had a foul, addictive scent and sharp thorns that bound you and leeched away your money and dignity.
He was the son of a drunk and a whore, the result of a paid one-night stand. The mother didn't want to abort, but didn't want to raise a child, either -- not like she would've been able to support him even if she'd wanted to. So, she had the kid, came to the father's door, hastily explained the situation and left without her baby and without looking back. Neither the father nor Darby saw her again after that. Reno, Darby's father, hadn't even known that the girl was pregnant.
Though Umerin was full of very, very bad people every which way you could turn, Reno wasn't one of them. He was a drunk, sure; he couldn't stop drinking (or didn't quite have the strength to) and was dangerously poor as a result. Any money he made he got from gambling. These things made him hesitant to take in a child, especially because he was pretty sure he'd be an awful father, but he felt bad for Darby and decided that there was nothing else he could do.
He'd been right, unsurprisingly; he wasn't a good father, as hard as he tried. Too often he was stumbling or lounging around in a drunken stupor rather than offering needed support to his son, or when he actually tried to spend quality time with Darby, tried to give him advice or help with homework, he was too inebriated to be of much good. He could've been called downright bad at parenting. Regardless, Darby loved his father plenty while growing up, taking all of the bad things with the much more occasional good ones. Umerin wasn't a place where a kid should be raised, and it became routine for Darby to see awful things just walking the streets. A guy in an alley with his brains blown out, some teenagers shooting themselves up with drugs, constantly having to be wary just to avoid getting mugged... It was normal for Darby. Early on he stopped caring, wouldn't even blink at some poor sap getting beaten up at the side of the road, and if someone came at him trying to take what little he had on his person, he'd fight back like a wildcat.
He learned, and he adapted, and life went on.
Due to Reno's gambling and drinking habits, he and his son didn't do very well money-wise, and Darby started trying to help out as soon as he could. Prostitution was definitely not his style and there were so few honest, well-paying jobs in Umerin that he didn't even bother trying to get 'em. Instead, he started pick-pocketing. At first he sucked terribly at it, but like with most things he got better with practice. After a while he stopped getting caught, and he had figured out which sorts of people were probably carrying a decent amount of cash on their person. He learned to read crowds, to read faces, to stay under the radar so that no one ever saw him coming, much less sneaking away again with their wallet in his hands. The income from stealing wasn't too high, but it was enough to keep them going.
It was inevitable that he'd develop a nasty attitude and disposition thanks to the harsh environment. His scrawny body and boyish face made him a favorite target of the older and bigger kids, too, so he had to be extra tough to deal with all the grief they gave him. He grew mean and rude and stand-offish, and it was unsurprising that by age fifteen he'd done shit that some adults living elsewhere wouldn't have dreamed of. He'd been drunk, he'd been high, he'd gotten into enough fights (and lost enough of them) that by all rights he probably should've been nothing but a pile of broken bones and blood, and he'd lost his virginity to a guy twice his age.
Those that traveled quickly through the town might've seen him, might've noticed that he looked like little more than a kid, and yet his face was as colorful as a tie-dye shirt with bruises, angry colors and ugly colors, purples and yellows and browns and reds. They might've observed that he always had his fists clenched and a growl on his lips; he'd been hardened and made meaner by this place. The ones that stopped and stuck around long enough to care might've pitied him, and yet, if he'd known, he would have thought that those travelers were nuts. Why pity him? He was alive, wasn't he? Hell, he was grateful enough that he'd managed to keep breathing for fifteen years. People that pitied him instead of the piles of dead bastards in the town were idiots.
At age sixteen, he started hearing hushed talk of Organization Nox in the Kairuu Region. Initially he didn't care much, but the more he heard, the more interested he became. He listened to the rumors and the mumbling and asked friends what they knew. People would talk about the things that Nox did, about how the organization was infamous for its vicious and powerful Shadow Pok?mon, and about how so many feared and hated the group. They were gaining strength, or so some said. Nox was gonna be big trouble for Kairuu. That was what people thought.
Well, he was sold.
He decided to set out and join in, craving the power that the organization seemed to offer and loving the idea of being a lawless, dangerous criminal -- or, well, more than he already had been. This was better than pickpocketing. It was exciting, action-packed, and hopefully more badass than sneaking about in alleyways and crowded spaces and patting the asses of fat businessmen to snag bills from their wallets. If things worked out well, maybe he wouldn't have to pickpocket at all anymore. Maybe he'd be rolling in dough thanks to this Nox group. Damn. He hoped so.
When it came time to leave, he half-lied to his father about what he was doing and said that he was going to become a trainer. Reno was overjoyed that his son wanted to do something "good" with his life, and sent him off happily, telling him to make sure he didn't get his scrawny butt kicked too much when he was gone. (In other words, he was telling Darby to be careful.) The boy grinned and walked out the door.
From there, it was off to catch a ferry to the Kairuu Region, and on to the Nox HQ.
SINCE THEN...
- Got his starter, a Shadow Skorupi that he named Ripper.
- Gathered a team (Turtwig, Buneary, Snubbull, Houndour, Sneasel) from various events and wild encounters.
- Met Blair at the Yule Ball and promised him sex as a Christmas present. Good going, Darby. Still hasn't given said present.
HOW'D YOU GET HERE?
I was on old Kairuu.
