User Profile

Application for thedollsyhouse
(My primary journal for Nabuca is located over at handsofakiller)

Player's Name: Kura
AIM/email/other contact info: IM me at tankkura!
Personal LJ: (if applicable) keyaki

Character: Nabuca
Series: Now and Then, Here and There
Version: Anime, around the time Shu gets inducted into Nabuca's corps.
Age: 15 (...I thought he was younger, but DVD extras say otherwise?)
Gender: Male

Appearance: He's tall and lean; he'd probably be as thin as a bone if not for his muscular composition. His skin is dull and translucent, even though he lives in a desert, but the cause is most likely prolonged dehydration (he is not given food or water on a regular basis). He has big green eyes and dark hair that appears, at a glance, to be jet black; upon further inspection, or under bright lighting, his hair is actually a very, very deep blue.

Personality: He's very emotionally suppressed and fails at expressing himself adequately, both with words and with body language. He never smiles throughout the series (but he really doesn't have a good reason to, does he?); in one scene at the end of episode seven, he almost smiles at the protagonist, but it seems he's ultimately forgotten how to work his facial muscles. The reason for his emotional suppression is fairly obvious; he's been a child soldier since the age of five, and not by choice. He's learned to smother his emotions because he doesn't want to weaken himself. If he stops to think about the terrible things he's done, or the terrible things that were done to him, he'll have an emotional breakdown that will hinder his performance as a soldier. Weak soldiers are useless at Heliud and dealt with severely.

Nabuca favors reason and tactics above sentiment. He's a very, very capable soldier and knows a myriad of ways to survive in a pinch. His knowledge of the human body is vast, in that he knows exactly where to hit you for instant kills, minor injuries, or paralysis. Several times over the course of the series, he shows himself to be highly intelligent, predicting the outcome of strategical/combative moves (the sandstorm episode) and deciding how to tackle various duties (figuring out how to tackle the enormous metal fortress of Heliud in order to recover Lala Ru's pendant in as little time as possible). Because he knows how to get a job done, and fast, you could consider him a natural-born leader. It's no wonder he was promoted to Corps Leader.

But for all his tactical intelligence, he is so emotionally stunted that he often comes across as a young child. He doesn't understand kindness (although he exhibits kindness himself) and he's very bad at interpreting another person's feelings. He's bad at interpreting his own feelings.

Underneath his stony facade is a kind heart. We only get to see glimpses of his kindness when he's around Boo, another (much younger) child soldier in his ranks. Nabuca goes to extreme lengths to take care of little Boo, whether it be taking the fall for one of Boo's mistakes or performing Boo's chores to make sure the six-year-old doesn't wear himself out. His attitude towards the children in his Corps, Boo in particular, is authoritative and protective; you could consider him something of a consummate big brother figure.

His best skill is probably denial. Several times during the series, it becomes blatantly obvious that he has no home to return to (Heliud destroys every village they plunder so the villages can't recuperate and fight back). He's there to witness at least one siege where a village is destroyed by a barrage of missiles...and he still chooses to believe King Hamdo's promise that he'll get to go home once he's served his duty. Nabuca's a smart boy, so you'd think he wouldn't fall for such a dumb trick. Deep down inside, he probably realizes that he's been lied to all his life. The problem is that Nabuca has little else to cling to. He chooses to believe he'll go home one day, even though he knows he won't ever go home, because his vague memories of his home are the only comfort he has left.

Fears: Fear of dying is probably his biggest fear. He demonstrates a disgust and dislike towards Heliud a fair amount of times, but he won't disobey them because he'll be killed if he disobeys, and he doesn't want to die. He's not sure there's anything more to life than life itself and he doesn't want to cease to exist; he's also afraid of death because he doesn't want to face the people he's killed and the person he's become. He's afraid of what his mother will think of him, but he's afraid he'll never get to see her again.

Weaknesses: He's automatically obedient (it was drilled into him to obey his superiors since he was five years old), so sometimes he lets people push him around and he fails to think for himself. With firearms, he seems to favor pump-action shotguns over the semi-automatic handguns, which might imply he's a better shot at a distance than at close range. Unarmed, he's not very strong; he's been malnourished and dehydrated his entire life, so if anything, he's frail.

Strengths/Abilities: Good with knives and firearms. He knows every conceivable area on the body for instant kills, paralysis, weak injuries, and substantial injuries. (He color-codes them, which implies he naturally compartmentalizes.) Tactically intelligent; knows how to extend his lifespan when faced with little or no food or water. Knows how to treat some wounds. Possesses a strong memory; seems to have the entire desert world surrounding Heliud mapped out by memory alone. He's got the standard, mandatory strengths of a soldier, combined with the intellect of an intuitive boy.

History: Billions and billions of years into the future, the sun orbiting planet Earth is in early stages of nova, and all major bodies of water have dried up. Humanity survives only by rationing what little water supplies they have left.

Adults desperate to survive at any cost band together under a charismatic political leader named King Hamdo, and under his reign, they build a sprawling metal nation called Heliud.

Heliud's objective is as follows: To obtain the entirety of what little water remains on Earth by plundering the surrounding villages and city-states. The tactics Heliud employs are both cunning and repulsive. To lessen the chances of their enemy fighting back, Heliud kidnaps and employs small children in their army--children as young as five years old.

The children are frightened and easily influenced. Undergoing severe discipline, they quickly learn that the only way to survive in Heliud is to do exactly as they are told--and maybe, just maybe, they'll be granted freedom someday.

Heliud's intimidation tactics are shown to work with exceptional success. Whenever Heliud besieges their neighbors for food and water supplies, the villages and city-states are extremely reluctant to fight back. How can you find it in your heart to hurt a tiny, terrified child? Unfortunately, that reluctance ultimately serves as their downfall.

When Nabuca was five years old, Heliud invaded and ransacked his peaceful little village. Nabuca was kidnaped and conscripted into the child army, along with his best friend Tabool. Nabuca was terrified at first and hesitant to follow the adults' orders; he was a good little boy, and he certainly didn't want to kill innocent people, let alone anyone. But when a group of his friends tried to escape Heliud and were executed on the spot, Nabuca soon learned that the only way to live was to conform. At five years old, Nabuca became a killer.

Ten years passed, and due to his quiet and effective obedience, Nabuca was eventually promoted to the position of a Corps Leader (aka the leader of a unit of about thirty child soldiers). In that time span, Nabuca underwent severe and unspeakable experiences, for the environment of a child army is both cruel and unusually brutal.

Nabuca met and befriended a little boy named Boo, who grew to depend on Nabuca as his lifeline and his source of strength. He met a twelve-year-old boy named Shu who was brimming with kindness and optimism and caused Nabuca to question the morality of his actions. Furthermore, he and his best friend Tabool slowly drifted farther and farther apart, for Nabuca chose to believe that they would go home one day, whereas Tabool became jaded and desensitized to murder and cruelty, choosing ultimately to conform to the only acceptable pattern of behavior at Heliud.

It is safe to say that Nabuca has been shot at before. It is safe to say that Nabuca has been beaten and tortured and humiliated. It is safe to say that Nabuca is not a virgin (and not by choice) and probably has more STDs than he is aware of. He is distrustful by nature and afraid of intimate human contact. He has learned to expect the worst and forgotten what it feels like to be hugged.

Nabuca's story is based off of a child soldier conscripted during the Rwandan Genocide.

Sample RP post:

He had been standing in his quarters with his Corps, gearing everyone up for their upcoming trek across the desert. It was freezing and nighttime; there was a raging sandstorm outside the metal walls of Heliud, and they needed to prepare themselves with jackets and thick goggles lest the sweeping sands inhibit their performance.

"Check your canteens," Nabuca had advised. "If your canteen is less than a third full, report to Sergeant Dama before we leave."

And he'd tucked his goggles into the pocket of his desert jacket (he hated them; he didn't want to wear them until he absolutely had to). He'd cast a sympathetic, green-eyed gaze over at Boo, the youngest member of his corps, a wordless way of telling Boo Everything's going to be alright. He'd lifted the shotgun from his bunk bed and strapped it to his back, and he'd turned around to walk out through the open metal door and alert General Abelia that they were ready.

And then his foot had slipped and he felt himself sprawling to his face. He gritted his teeth with humiliation, but quickly eased his face back into the blank, expressionless mask he always wore.

He remembered thinking, Damn it, Murabi, stop leaving your items on the floor. What was it this time? Murabi's compass, maybe? Nabuca was blatantly surprised that he hadn't seen the object before he tripped over it and fell. He was astute and observational by nature; it was his custom to perform a full, quick check of surroundings before he moved, before he so much as blinked.

Or was there an object at all?

He pressed his hands flat on either side of his body and pushed himself off the floor. He brushed off the sleeves of his jacket with his knuckles (the floors of Heliud were dirty and dusty, it was a natural reaction).

"Funny," he said dryly, anticipating sniggers from his Corps.

His remark was met with silence.

And now that he thought about it...

The floor wasn't dusty at all. It was immaculate.

It was marble.

Green eyes widened, and the hairs on the back of Nabuca's neck prickled with unease. Slowly, and with dread, he lifted his eyes off of the floor.

He was not in Heliud.

His ordinarily blank face was transformed into an expression of fright; his mouth open with disbelief, his eyes wide with incredulity. He took a step back--and then another--and then another until his back was pressed flat against a burnished oak door. He jolted; he turned around and yanked on the handles with every ounce of vigor in his fifteen-year-old body.

No luck.

He gnashed his teeth with frustration and with worry. This had to be a dream, he told himself, because things like this just didn't happen in real life. He ran his hands over his belt and began to relax; his handgun, radio, canteen, compass, and combat knife were all in tact.

Nabuca unclipped the radio from his waist and pressed the button down with his thumb. He lowered his head and spoke into the receiver:

"This is Corps Leader 113. Do you read me?"

He released the button and twisted the dial at the bottom of the panel.

Static.

Nabuca was still and silent for about three minutes. Finally he tucked his radio under the folds of his jacket and sat down on the floor, his thin body decked with the heavy weight of weapons and desert supplies.

He was going to decipher a way out of here. He had to.

But first, he wanted to know how he got here in the first place.

He thought about his predicament back home--pain and torture day in and day out, and the filth and stench of other people's blood on his hands.

He wasn't in any hurry to return.

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