Nana of the Dead Stars (DND)

His full name is Nana and the Stars that Ceased to Shine, but there just wasn't enough room to type that. It's no big deal anyway, since he just tends to go by "Nana" these days.

Timeless. Unfortunately. (he's been around longer than most people can comprehend, but physically/psychologically he should be read as in his mid-late 30s)

July 14th (Cancer)

Cis male (he/him)

Gay-- but look, does it really matter? He doesn't expect all that to be relevant again anytime soon...

A soldier of the heroic Red Cloaks, a massive camp full of warriors from all walks of life who have banded together to protect the realm in any way possible. H-he's a fairly recent recruitment.

Deity, although a very, very weakened deity. He's so worn down that he's certainly comparable to human mortals, though he is still more powerful than most mortals. He's extremely rusty with his godly abilities due to lack of usage over the past couple centuries, and he's strangely okay with that most of the time.

Human, Japanese (or like, y'know, whatever the equivalent would be) // Fighter

[CW: pedophilia/child sexual abuse, abusive relationships, sexual assault]

... That's certainly a question with an answer. Are you sure you want that answer?

... A couple centuries ago, Nana was in a longterm romantic relationship with a witch who was at-the-time-named Arya Kurosawa. No one around them could deny the truth of their deep, profound love for each other, they were easily that time and place (because, do you really know?)'s 'power couple' in the kingdom. Everything was wonderful - Nana was a genius with people, charming, handsome, charismatic, gentle, devoted, and Arya was a genius with numbers and magic, sweet, cute, alluring, kind, adoring. There was just one problem, a problem they both found very insignificant at the time: Nana was, for all intents and purposes, an adult, and Arya, for all intents and purposes, was not.

As I said, the 30s-or-so-looking-and-acting Nana and the 14-or-so-looking-and-acting Arya had no idea at all that this sort of gap in age, maturity and power could ever be a problem. But it was, it was a huge problem between them, they just never thought about it. Perhaps it was easier that way, to pretend everything was alright.

But past a certain point, Arya in particular could no longer pretend. His eyes were opened rather violently by a spell cast by another witch in what was supposed to be an innocently fun sparring match, and from that point on, Arya could no longer love Nana - because he realized what Nana really was. Nana was certainly all those beautiful things he was described as, which was part of why it was so damned hard to realize his uglier side, but Nana was also precisely manipulative, coercive, he guilted Arya constantly (and often too subtly to be noticed) when it served a purpose, and for someone so blissfully unaware of the difference in power between a man and a boy, Nana was quite condescending to little Arya, he often treated Arya like a pupil rather than a partner.

Was it inevitable to Nana's personality? Was it inevitable to pedophiles as a whole? Probably both, but poor, poor Arya didn't care - he was too busy figuring out how to protect himself from the man who had, since day one, been an abuser and a predator, without giving away that he just could not love said man anymore. He knew, for some reason, admitting that would put him in danger somehow.

But, try as he did to pretend everything was fine, Nana eventually figured out that Arya was certainly... Distant these days, which his mind interpreted as coldness, neglect, perhaps even emotional abuse, and he... Responded "accordingly," by only becoming more and more emotionally, psychologically and sexually abusive, and all the while he had no idea that he was the monster, not Arya.

In fact, he only realized the truth of this situation when he realized how Arya was fighting back in this helpless situation - Arya was slowly, subtly, poisoning Nana, forcing him to be bedridden and immobile; thus helpless to hurt Arya any longer, and... Helpless to protect himself against what would be Arya's revenge.

Nana doesn't blame his parents for the way he is anymore. He realizes that their emotional frigidity and often neglect is what pushed him to be such an emotional, over-sensitive, self-centered man, but he realizes that his actions were his own choice, and he had so, so many chances to turn back and stop. He just didn't. So how can he in good faith claim any kind of victimhood?

Anyone who knew Nana in those old days in which the stars gleamed bright would certainly have a hard time recognizing him through his appearance and his voice these days - both have changed quite drastically.

Nana's face, neck, shoulders, upper arms and one side of his chest are positively covered in burn scars that appear to be caused by flowing liquid (chemicals perhaps) rather than fire given the way they trail down his face and neck - and a couple laceration scars, hard to tell where those came from - combat, Arya's revenge or perhaps are a few self-inflicted? The origin of those chemical burn scars, though, come from something that would be a fairly simple act of cosmetic upkeep in mortals - he cut his hair.

What makes this the reason for such grievous injury is, Nana's hair when it was long, vibrant and healthy, contained the essence of the stars in it - and spots of it shined accordingly. It was Nana, not Arya, who cut that hair, because Nana knew it would serve as a suitable form of self-punishment. Not only does the essence of the stars burn like all hell when it bleeds, it hurts like slicing through a bundle of nerves. The result is pain beyond comprehension, which Nana figured was fair. An eye for an eye, even if he had to gouge his own proverbial eye out.

Similarly, he's got a bad leg from the way Arya sort of broke - and re-set, re-broke, re-set, and so on - it over and over over those course of those couple months of vengeance. That leg, even now, a couple centuries later, is still partially-broken, sometimes making it difficult for him to run quickly or for long distances, though he still tries like hell in spite of the pain and sometimes outright inability.

He's also got a huge bisecting scar on his chest. That's where he got "surgery" a couple times! His organs have eventually shifted to, more or less, where they are supposed to be in the gods' world, but they sure weren't always in the right places!

... But, you know, despite the accidentally-combined efforts of Arya and Nana both to mar that perfect beauty that once belonged to Nana and his body, there is one still remnant from those times he still has - his eyes, as bloodshot as they often are, are just as sultry and gorgeous as they always were. He kind of hates that. He's actually been considering taking one of those old things out, but ever since joining the Red Cloaks, he's realized that a lack of depth perception might make him less useful to Mason and his soldiers...

Nana is terribly shy, and the particularly perceptive around him can tell there's a reason for that - and not exactly a good one. Nana has everything in the world to hide and no idea of what to tell and how. It's not that he's actively hiding his past from those around him, he just has no idea who to tell, or what to say, or if he should go around telling everyone even though the voice inside his head begs him to.

Perhaps he figures he ought just be a useful weapon for now, that's the most he thinks of himself in terms of significance to the Red Cloaks, however much those superiors of his who do know - particularly Mason - seem to value him as more than only a weapon. That sort of baffles him, but he just kinda goes with it.

He is a very far cry from the horrific monster he once was, both physical, uh, "internal rearrangement" and simply time and learning have ensured that, but he knows better than to let himself off the hook for what he did simply because he's "different" and "better" now. Nana figures, quite correctly, that he deserved all the pain and suffering that came his way, but a problem with this correct thinking is that he continues to be somewhat single-minded today, in the pursuit of further punishment. One way to put it is, he just doesn't know where to stop throwing himself under every (generally metaphorical) horse and carriage that passes by.

He's... Very lucky to have people like Mason around him, who know what he is and what he did and still advise him not to seek punishment simply for the sake of punishment, but rather to seek comeuppance, growth and personal development that is meaningful.

Anyhow, all that aside, Nana is severely chronically depressed and dissociates quite often, he's got a well-deservedly abysmally low self-esteem, and he's also developed something like psychotic delusions with regards to his own body. He believes often that he has snake skin - snake skin that secretes deadly, deadly poisons, and if anyone should touch his bare skin, they will fall ill and die. This makes him extremely anxious about physical contact of any kind.

Nana went nobly, mind you, to Arya's revenge - he didn't fight back or argue his own innocence, not even when Arya dealt him more pain than his own body could comprehend, he accepted everything that came his way because he knew he deserved it. But realizing that he, who he thought he was the victim of this situation, was actually an unspeakably evil monster, and that he, who thought he was treating Arya like royalty, was actually breaking Arya's mind and body, sent Nana into a deep, deep, severe depression.

He wasn't sad or self-pitying, he couldn't move. He couldn't bring himself to budge even slightly, to speak, eat, or even to think all that much. Faced with that and Kutsuuko's retaliation, his mind just... Changed. And when Arya, now Kutsuuko, finally abandoned him out of disgust and horror (Nana figures it could have been boredom, but Kutsuuko couldn't stand looking at his tormentor for any longer), he had to pull himself out of that depression. Broken as he was, Nana didn't plan on withering away forever. But... Looking back, Nana has no idea what he DID plan to do. Make things right somehow? He knew even then he could never do that.

Tea, silence, night-time, cold weather - particular snow and high winds, travelling, adventuring, feeling useful to others, living in service to others, setting things right wherever he can at least with his fellow Red Cloaks, and as far as people go, he feels particularly trusting thusfar of Mason and Sherlock.

Eye contact, bathing, hot weather, bright lights, himself, mirrors (MIRRORS!!!!), feeling as if he's deceiving others, himself, and as far as people go he is particularly NOT fond thusfar of Xio.

Well, if nothing else... Diligence, hardiness, strength, intelligence, wisdom, a newly-acquired sense of wrong, a selfless nature, a strong sense of problem-solving and the sheer might of his willingness to take care of business no matter what, with no complaining.

He's not particularly quick-moving, he's got slow reflexes, he's lost much of his social grace over the years, he's easily-made-anxious, he's severely depressed, he has occasional psychotic delusions (the most prominent and recurring being the belief that he has snake skin that secretes deadly poison, and if anyone touches his skin they'll become ill and die), he's got an obsessive tendency to seek punishment or suffering, he's not easily convinced of his own worth (though this isn't exactly unwarranted)

Once, when I was in 10th grade, he co-fronted in my head. It was fucked up!

Judgment

Lost Destination - 150-P [Len Kagamine and KAITO]