application for babylonwood

2010-09-12T02:29:55Z

The Player
User Name/Nick: Brandi
User LJ: muggles
AIM/IM: zombiebag or pandasaurs
E-mail: kupocakes@yahoo
Other Characters: Jo and Cassie

The Character
Character Name: Nill
Character Journal: mutings
Canon: Dogs: Bullets & Carnage
Age: Between 14-16
From When?: Between chapters 44 to 46, during a fight between Heine and his brother Giovanni. There are bombs exploding across the city, and Nill is being held with other children in a basement of an older building in hopes of staying safe. The building around them is collapsing, however, because of the nearby explosions. The way out of the basement has been blocked by parts of the building that have collapsed and fallen, and Nill is trapped and waiting for the entire building to cave in on her and the other children.

Abilities/Powers: Nill has no powers. She's physically weak, isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, and she isn't particularly agile or skilled at anything. She's...pretty pathetic, actually, when it comes to things like that. Nill's strength lies in her compassion and her ability to love. Seriously, the girl has been through some seriously terrible things that would break a lot of people. But she's gone through them and manages to keep going. Alsoooo, as a point of interest, her wings do not enable her to fly.

Power Limitations: Nill has no powers or abilities that need to be limited!

Inventory
-Clothes (lolita style dress, knee socks, petticoats, undergarments, hair ribbons, and old fashioned side button boots)
- Nothing else. Her life is really hard ):

Personality: Nill, in canon, is really not shown as having much of a personality. All of the focus of Nill's character is centered around her devotion and love of Heine. She is shown as being someone who is scared easily, someone who doesn't trust others right away (unless she sees that Heine trusts/likes them). She is timid in nature, but she is a great deal stronger than anyone gives her credit for. She has been through a lot of sadness and terror in her life, and has seen the worst in humanity, but she doesn't let that keep her down. Instead, she keeps going on in life the best as she can. Her life is far from perfect, and she knows that, but she's perfectly content with how things are. Simply because she's alive and she has a family of sorts, which is more than she knows that she would have if she had been left in the care of the men who wanted to sell her.

She wants so badly to be useful, and it seems that her greatest goal is merely to be supportive and caring to Heine, Bishop, Badou, and Naoto. She's very unsure of meeting new people at first, so unless someone rescues her from harm, she's going to be apprehensive on an initial meeting. But once someone proves they can be trusted and that they are a friend, Nill will be entirely loyal and supportive of that person. She loves with her entire heart and doesn't let the fact she can't speak get in the way of expressing her devotion. Her every little gesture and every look in her eye speaks a thousand words, and she is glad that she's able to bring peace to others. While most everyone in the world she lives in has absolute physical strength and great mental prowess, Nill is content to know that she's strong in heart and that her hope and faith can be a force to be reckoned with on occasion.

One of the most important aspects of Nill's personality that's shown is her determination. She fails at so much in life, and she's really not the most capable character. She's often distant and aloof, she can be clumsy, she has major issues communicating with others, and she can't even do something as simple as sewing. She often feels useless and like a waste, but she keeps working and trying until she eventually masters something. Even if it's something small like sewing a button onto pants, or closing a bullethole in one of Heine's shirts, it's a major victory to her. In a lot of aspects, she can be seen as simple minded, especially by those who don't know her. And while that may be true to an extent, Nill is not dumb, and it's because people constantly underestimate her that she's driven to succeed at the precious few things she can do relatively decent.

She is also shown as being non judgmental. As mentioned previously, Nill has seen the very worst in humanity and she knows what people can be like. She's seen her fair share of sex and violence, but she still holds a very strong sense of innocence about her. Even through this simple innocence that comes off of her, there are plentiful opportunities for Nill to pass judgment on others in the series. Heine and Badou are bounty hunters, and she met Heine in a violent situation. She saw him kill a small handful of men in order to save her, and she knows how dangerous he can be. And yet, she doesn't judge him, and she eventually comes to a place where she's not afraid of him. She's just so devoted to Heine and the fact that he saved her that she's often blinded by it, and she rationalizes the things that he and Badou do in order to make a living and protect others. She doesn't ever judge either of them, even though she has plenty of room to, and she just accepts the fact that they fight and kill and she cares about them for who they are. Her sense of morals are probably pretty skewed, due to the things she went through, so she probably has a slightly twisted sense of what's right and what's wrong. I assume she knows the basic essentials of what's good and what's bad, especially since she's been living in a church for a while, but she's going to be more sympathetic and understanding about people who kill, as long as they have a "good" reason for doing it.

Essentially, Nill's biggest fear at this point in her life is losing Heine and Naoto. They are her protectors, especially Heine, and she cares for him a great deal. She would do anything in her power to keep Heine safe and happy, and she'd be willing to give up her own life to ensure that he survives. He's just this superhero figure in her eyes, and she holds him so high up on a pedestal, that anyone knocking Heine down off of said pedestal would devestate her. She's well aware that having Heine so close to her also ensures her own safety, so losing him would mean she was entirely vulnerable and that she would be open to be kidnapped and taken back into the sex trade industry. She's not really wanting that to happen, so having Heine alive is beneficial to her in more ways than one. Also, since she has no voice, Nill is terrified of not being able to communicate with others. So much relies in her eyesight and her sense of touch, so she's worried about something happening that causes her to lose one of her remaining senses. Nill's wings are also a sensitive point for her, since she knows that she is unique because of them. She is also well aware that she is desireable to men because of her wings, and it has left her a bit bitter. She wouldn't go back and change who she is, but she isn't sure what her identity would be without her wings. Heine probably wouldn't have gone out of his way to save her if he hadn't have seen her wings, and she wouldn't have people out constantly trying to capture her and do things to her if she didn't have them. It's really a double edged sword for her, but she knows that there's nothing she can do about it.

History: Not much is known about Nill in canon, due to the fact she isn't entirely sure of her heritage. She is a teenage girl with white wings (fused to her flesh through a body altering surgical process), who was saved from a child prostitution ring by a young man named Heine, and then was brought into the care of a man named Bishop. Due to the process of being given wings, Nill's vocal chords have been removed by the surgeons. The explanation given in canon for this is that beings created in the underground are given something extra, but then have something taken away so that they will not be perfect creatures. Nill was created for visual purposes, and therefore she wasn't required to speak. In exchange to be visually pleasing to a buyer, she was forced to have her voice taken away. It's not even known in canon if she was born to parents and kidnapped, or if she was a genetic experiment and was created by scientists. Not much about her background is given at all. There is also an unknown jump in time between the time she's introduced (she says she's 14 there), and the Bullets & Carnage series. The only way you can tell time has passed is that Heine's facial features have matured and his hair is longer, and Nill's facial features have matured and her body has filled out a little. Fanon has gone anywhere from six months to two years being jumped in the skip between Dogs and Dogs: Bullets & Carnage, so I've gone ahead and put her age at being anywhere between 14-16.

She also can't speak, even if she wanted to. The only sounds she makes are through breathing, and she tries to communicate as best as possible through facial expressions and gestures. She now lives at the church with Bishop, and tends to chores around the church. She doesn't leave the church very often, unless it is to go out and get new dresses or if Heine is taking her somewhere for safe keeping. She is trying to learn how to sew, in order to be more useful and fix bullet holes that appear in Haine's clothes. She doesn't get to see Haine as often as she'd like, and views him as being her protector, her hero. She looks up to him, and wants to be able to repay him for saving her, somehow.

She doesn't recall her parents, or if she even actually had any. She may recall bits and pieces of the surgical proceedure, but nothing too graphic or terrible, nothing as damaging as the memories that exist from her life post operation. Her earliest memories are of waking up and being in the care of the men who would sell her and her body to the highest bidder. In canon, it is never stated how terribly she was sexually abused, or if she even actually had been, but there were several things said by her captors that gave evidence both to her being raped as well as her still being a virgin that needed "training". Because of this, she is afraid of sex, and things relating to it. She knows all too well the horrors of the world, and that someone as weak as she is can't escape them. Which is why she is glad that she has been living in the church. Because it is one of the last safe places left, even if sometimes, the less desireables come in and attempt to take her. Which happens on a relatively frequent basis in canon, it seems that one group or another is out to get her, always with the intention of selling her for sex or to be visually appreciated by someone with money.

During her time at the church, she's met quite a few interesting individuals. Heine's friend Badou is someone that she is still apprehensive about, if only for his loud nature and the fact that she doesn't get to see him all that often. Someone new that Nill has met, and is quite fond of is a woman named Naoto. Nill and Naoto met when the woman entered the church, around the same time a group of men came to retrieve Nill and bring her back to the group that had originally "owned" her. Picked up and rescued by Naoto, Nill is very grateful to the woman and wants to repay her kindness. She is very curious about Naoto, because she hasn't really met other women before. She seems to look up to the other, and is trying to learn from her, to pick up cues on how she is supposed to act. And it is shown that she cares for Naoto, in the way that she touches and is worried about the scar across Naoto's chest, and by how she attempts to sew and repair Naoto's clothes after a fight. Of course, no one can even come close to touching her devotion to Heine or Bishop, but Badou and Naoto are two people that Nill is curious to learn more about and holds a definite affection for.

Nill isn't really shown as doing much in canon, except for her chores around the church, as well as sewing. From early on in the series, she noticed that Heine and Badou would return to the church after a job, with their clothes ridden with bulletholes. Wanting to be able to help patch up their clothes and save them money, Nill picked up a book on sewing and attempted to learn how. However, she's not talented at it at all, and she pretty much fails at doing it properly. She shares a tender moment with Badou when he teaches her a few things about sewing, and it is after that point that she is able to actually start being more useful and can sew things for others. While it's not really a valuable skill when compared to the fighting that everyone else in the series does, it's one of the most important things to her, and it's something that makes her feel strong and capable and like she's making a difference in the lives of the people she cares about. So she takes her sewing very seriously, and while she doesn't expect others to, it always makes her day to have someone thank her for her hard work or appreciate the repairs she's done to their clothing. This really essentially is her only skill, aside from being endlessly supportive and caring to those she lives with.

As far as growth is concerned, Nill really hasn't grown a lot from the time that she first appeared to the most recent issue. She's still incredibly timid and she can't fight for herself, and she is constantly in danger of being killed. She still relies on Heine and Naoto to save her, and she still cowers in fear when threatened or attacked. This is due largely to a lack of character development for her in canon, simply because the series moves very slow and sometimes ten or twelve chapters will be of one fight between the main characters. Nill is essentially a minor character, despite the influence she has over Heine emotionally. She really controls a lot of how he acts, and you see all of his tender and soft moments when he is with Nill, but her only true show of development is that she goes from being afraid of Heine to being able to touch him and communicate with him. They really go from struggling to communicate, to being able to just understand one another effortlessly, and it's a beautiful friendship that will help Nill develop the more the series moves along.

First Person Sample: (a video post because Nill isn't really seen writing in canon, and therefore you have no idea what her writing and literacy capabilities are. She is seen reading a book about sewing in canon, but the book is held upside down at one point, so you're never exactly sure if she's reading the book or just trying to follow the pictures. Because of this, she will have very basic writing and typing skills at first, and will slowly begin to improve.)

VIDEO

[A small girl clicks on the device and for a great deal of time all you can see are blue eyes peering right up against the camera lens. There is a jostle and the phone falls to the ground, and you can see it's owner spinning about looking for it. While she turns, you catch sight of a pair of white wings. There is a smile on her face as she finally spots the phone and crouches to pick it up, this time tapping at the camera a few times before holding it out far enough away that everyone can see her full face. She isn't entirely sure of the phone's purpose however, and she looks frustrated as she tips her head to the side and stares at the camera. After a great deal of messing around with the phone, the video shuts off and goes to text instead.]

H e l l o ?

Prose Sample:

SAMPLE ONE

In the time since things had returned back to normal, Nill had easily slipped back into her life away from Bishop's care. Not that she had much of one, but the few things that she did get to do were enough for her. But even with the resigned sense of contentment that she felt, she longed to be back in the life she had lived back when she had actually been able to attend school with others. She had made a friend back then, and she had gotten to have a chance to learn. She had been in an orphanage, but at least she had an actual home. Ever since being sent away for safety by Heine, she hadn't felt as if she had a home anywhere. The church was safe and nice, but it was so lonely.

Which was why Nill spent as much time as possible outside, lingering around the graveyard. Tonight she was out laying flowers on the gravesites, ones she had picked from someone's flowerbed earlier in the day. She felt bad for having stolen something, but she knew that the people resting in the ground needed just as much care and nice things as the people still living. Besides, there were far worse things in the world than stealing flowers, and so she was contented enough to not let her thoughts linger on it for long.

Instead, she fluttered on her tiptoes down the rows of marble and cement markers, dropping down to carefully leave a bright colored flower. She would only remain crouched for a few seconds, until the bottoms of her feet would begin to freeze and tingle, and then she would shift back and forth on the balls of her feet as she rose to stand and move on to the next person. She was a flurry of white lace and ribbons, the materials trailing along after her on her tattered dress as she moved about.

Oblivious to the world around her, she focused on her task at hand. She was quick, but didn't rush, as she wasn't eager to return to life inside the church. It was warm and comforting, but lonely. And on cold nights like these, she missed Heine more than ever, and it was almost enough to drive her to tears. So instead of allowing herself to sit around idle and sulk uselessly, she kept herself active and busy. Heine would want and expect her to be strong, and so she was going to do her best to make him proud.

---

SAMPLE TWO

She felt bad for snapping at Heine the way she had, but she wanted to let him know that she needed to learn to do some things on her own. She was small, and knew she wasn't strong. There wasn't any way she could ever be strong. But she needed to be able to go outside by herself, and without Heine or Bishop accompanying her. What if they left, the same as so many other people had? She'd be alone, and never able to go outside, if that happened.

And so, the tiny girl set out by herself, and headed straight toward the river and forest. She had seen flowers there, before, and wanted to gather as many as she possibly could. A small, tin pail in hand; she merrily pranced her way to the flowers, her little wings fluttering about. She was still dressed in the same white nightgown that she had been wearing upon her arrival, and despite the fact it was now growing gray from dirt, she couldn't bear to take it off of her body and let it be washed. She had no other clothes, and it was the last thing she had as a reminder of her life back home.

She spent nearly half an hour plucking bright colored flowers from the river bank and the edge of the forest, carefully placing each and every blossom into her pail. She was going to return home, create bouquets for those she cared about, and then hand them out. Heine, Giovanni, Bishop, Badou, Naoto, and Wice would all receive flowers from her; and she could only hope and pray that they liked them and understood how much they meant to her.

After half an hour of being crouched down, Nill noticed the sound of rustling in bushes nearby. Perking up her head, she froze in place, eyes wide as she looked around. She couldn't see anything, but knew that something was watching her. As quickly as she could, she stood upright, and prepared to run. Grabbing on to her pail, she clutched it close to her chest and took off running. The monster that had been lurking in the bushes lunged out and at her the second her back was turned, and the girl stood no chance of running away.

She was caught up with and tackled down to the ground in only a matter of seconds, her tin pail and flowers flying out of her hands and landing with a crash on the ground. Her first instinct was to reach out for the flowers, as her eyes welled with tears. Curling up her body as best as she could, she kicked at the wolf-like beast with her bare feet. Her mouth was dropped open as if she were screaming, although no sound could come out. She wanted to scream for Heine, scream for Bishop, scream for anyone that may have been nearby.

The monster had chomped down on the edge of her dress and was using the hold on her to drag her body into the woods, to hide its kill within the trees. Despite the fact she was terrified, Nill dug her fingers into the ground, poking the little things in as far as they could possibly go. Lifting her head, she began to pull away, mouth dropping open in a soundless scream once again as the monster snarled and began to shake his head, her body flinging back and forth with the motion.

It was at this moment that she realized she should have listened to Heine and remained inside. She didn't realize how dangerous the city was, and had gotten herself into trouble.

Special Notes: I like sparkles, and porno. I bet you didn't think you'd see the word porno on a Nill app, did you?

NILL

application for babylonwood