MoM APPLICATION

[eyelineronpoint]

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Trace
AGE: 28
JOURNAL: N/A
IM / EMAIL: manicalpha@gmail.com
PLURK: gonewithouta
RETURNING: AYE
Wally West runningstart

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Gaara
CHARACTER AGE: 17
SERIES: Naruto: Shippuden
CHRONOLOGY: Chapter 548
CLASS: Hero??? yes
HOUSING: Wherever! He's going to hate the entire east coast regardless of where he is.

BACKGROUND:

Gaara's Profile
Plot of Naruto

The world of Naruto is a strange amalgamation of a dozen different concepts and traits. It bears absolutely no resemblance to the world we know today; in fact, their entire knowledge of existing land mass seems to be this one fat continent with a bunch of interspersed islands. Nobody even knows what stretches out on the west side of the map. No, really.

It's a world where ninja are held in the highest esteem of military power. Feudal lords have command over their respective elemental countries, but the ninja capitals and their respective leaders are where the true power resides. It's a very cutthroat world; assassinations are common, skirmishes between countries occur on a daily basis, ninjas vying for favor and power and money against one another as they complete missions of both military and financial significance. It's an extremely delicate political structure; sabotage and murder between villages is expected, and the peace between them is tenuous at best.

In this world exist huge beasts basically made up of energy, or chakra. A lot of them are looked at as evil, and one of the craziest and most evil of them all was sealed into Gaara when he was still in the womb. His mother died giving birth to him, and as a child the people of the village feared and hated him. As a result of the demon Shukaku sealed inside of him he would sometimes hear its voice in his head and he would converse aloud with it, confusing it for his mother. Gaara wouldn't sleep for fear that the demon would take over while he slept and eat away at his personality. The demon also gave him control over sand; a fixed amount was always following him, protecting him without any interference with him and attacking those who threatened him with harm. Much of it was subconscious and a lot of it was without any of his input, and that combined with every other creepy thing he did made Gaara a figure shunned by the other children with whom he desperately tried to make friends. Didn't work.

The only person who seemed to love him was his maternal uncle, Yashamaru, but that went out the window when his uncle tried to kill him on his father's orders and informed him that his mother died cursing the village and hating everybody for killing her. He tells Gaara that she only named him that -a name that supposedly meant 'love'- because she wanted him to love only himself and hate and kill everybody else. Then he asks this kid who probably hasn't even lost his first baby tooth to just die already and blows himself up. As Gaara was like six at the time this was the understandably traumatizing cherry on top of a shitty-childhood sundae and he goes nuts, kills his uncle, carves the word "love" into his forehead and rampages around the city until he finally tuckers out.

When he comes back home, instead of being the odd lonely little boy who desperately wants friends he is a psychotic killing machine who justifies his existence by killing anybody who interferes with it. He's decided hey, nobody wants to love me? Fine, fuck you guys. I'll love myself so much that there's nothing left for the rest of you.

His awful father decided that since trying to kill his kid is what got them into this mess, he should try to kill his kid better to resolve it. He's unsuccessful. His youngest kid is like 1000% monster child now, and the line between bloodthirsty sand demon and psychotic human boy gets awfully blurry as he gets older.

Things are bloody and disturbing all the way up until he attends the chuunin exams with his elder brother and sister when he's about twelve. It's part of a hidden tactic to attack the Land of Fire, blah blah, the Sand was manipulated, ninja politics- Gaara doesn't care about that shit. The point is that he wants to kill some folks and for some reason, the ninjas from the Land of Fire -IE Naruto and his crew- are being really squeamish about being killed.

The exams get derailed when shit hits the fan, and Sasuke chases after Gaara and Gaara decides to bring it and they fight, clashing wills, yes, etc. It ends up with Gaara about to kill Naruto's two teammates, so Naruto brings the pain and there's a big shounen fight and it's very spectacular, takes many chapters to conclude, but what Gaara draws from the experience is that Naruto grew up like he did but didn't have a psychotic break. Gaara had come to the conclusion that he'd always be hated and alone so he never tried to connect with anyone after that day, but lo and behold, Naruto managed to despite their circumstances being similar. He's reintroduced to the idea that maybe he just didn't try hard enough.

That idea is cemented when his brother and sister carry him out of there instead of leaving him to die, and he apologizes for what's probably the first time in...ever. Sorry for threatening to kill them for years and years, for terrorizing them and making their lives hell also by association, for not giving them a chance to be a proper family, probably. All of the above.

When the Leaf calls for aid during a crisis, the Sand sends the siblings over to assist. As if to prove that he's changed, Gaara goes to the aid of Rock Lee, a boy whom he'd brutalized mercilessly during the exams months prior. He saves him and they even speak amicably for a little bit...sorta. They're seen off at the gates as allies instead of enemies, and considering Gaara was stomping around their forests as a gigantic fat sand demon not even a year prior says a lot about how forgiving those schmucks are.

Gaara also receives aid from the Leaf shortly after that when his very first student is kidnapped by some weird group with dumb weapons who wanna smack the junk out of Gaara for a stupid reason. Filler. Terrible filler plot. Either way, Konoha sends a bunch of dumb kids after them because apparently adults don't do anything hard in this show, and blah blah stupid fights blah- basically, Gaara suppresses the demon Shukaku instead of letting it run wild because he's done with that business and wants to start taking responsibility for himself. He rescues his student with the help of everyone else and things are dandy, and she thinks he's cool and everything is great.

Fast forward a few years; Gaara's really worked at that "forming bonds with people" thing and has become Kazekage of his village, which is basically a title that goes to the coolest ninja since apparently age has nothing to do with whether or not they can hold an executive administrative position there. Okay.

A lot of work was done off-screen during this time; he'd worked his way up through the ranks and gained the trust of, if not all, then many people. Though Gaara still had many dissenters in the ranks regarding his appointment to the position, especially during the chuunin exams that were held in his village, he had a lot of students, peers and councilmen who agreed that he'd changed and worked off his debt to the village. ...mostly. Though he was still quiet and taciturn and still had a demon inside of him, he'd managed to win the trust and respect of at least a good two-thirds of the village. Considering it was only a couple years ago that he was brutally murdering indiscriminately, that's damn good progress.

He proves himself further when Akatsuki attacks his village in an attempt to kidnap him for some weirdo world domination scheme. He engages the agent sent to retrieve him above the village in some dorky battle up in the sky, but when the jerk (Deidara but we'll just refer to him as a jerk) drops a bomb on his village, he uses the vast majority of his remaining strength to shield the entire city with sand. And after that, instead of saving himself he moves the sand so it doesn't crush the village. Of course, this results in him being captured, but hey bright side: his entire village is not destroyed.

Some big shounen brawls go down and Gaara gets retrieved by his heartfeelings lifemate Naruto, but he is like so cold you could use him to chill tea. Dead. Naruto cries about it and Chiyo, one of the elders of his village, performs Deus Ex Machina no Jutsu to bring him back to life and he's alive again and gets to see all his ninja citizens crying over him because they were scared and love his stupid ginger head. So that was probably a really refreshing moment because A) alive and B) people like me what. He'd been struggling with the idea that he was worth anything to anyone but seeing not only his friend rush to his rescue but all his people, and then the lady who sealed the demon in him in he first place died to bring him back to life? Yup. Maybe some evidence there that he's needed by the world, for what feels like the first time in his life.

From there Gaara does a lot of minding his own business over in sandland while the storyline continues along, but shit everywhere is getting Hella Real and eventually there's a summit called for the five leaders of the largest shinobi villages. Gaara goes and gives absolutely everybody and their attitude when they start having petty squabbles over bullshit that isn't relevant to the situation at hand, according to him (the situation being that Akatsuki is clearly gearing up for serious world-wrecking shit and need the last two jinchuuriki to do it). The other Kage are like "you are an infant" and Gaara responds with "so what" and then proceeds to ask them cute things like "when did you forsake yourselves" which is just. Gaara. If ur tryin to look older and wiser like, that is such a kid thing to say.

Anyway apparently his heart really got to the old people but that comes into play later. The Sauce (also known canonically as Sasuke) attacks the summit because he hasn't been the focus of attention for a while and Gaara confronts him about being a jerk and is like "hey I used to be a jerk and let me tell you it kind of sucks after a while, you should stop." The Sauce responds that he doesn't have to stop shit if he doesn't want to. Gaara cries and then attacks him, which as I understand is how many boys deal with intense emotions of failure and sadness so that's progress, good for him.

The Sauce gets saved by other Akatsuki people and escapes, technically, and Gaara goes to find Naruto to tell him that his not-boyfriend is a huge jerk and will probably try to kill him. Naruto doesn't take it well and Gaara is like "ok well I'm sorry that you don't care about your life but this guy is threatening both you and the world so like, I will kill the heck out of anybody who threatens either of those things, bye." He then proceeds to make preparations for Big Ninja Showdown and designs a headband and is all proud of himself for his arts and crafts. The Kage all get together again to decide what to do with the two last jinchuuriki during the fight and they're like "hide they asses" and the Hokage's not cool with it but Gaara just gives her attitude too. That's apparently his role in the group, sass all Kages.

So everybody gets together and Gaara is decided upon as the Commander of the entire ninja army, because the ninja world in general likes to put power into the hands of teenagers honestly. Anyway this was a good decision because the ninja of the five countries have a hard time making nice, so Gaara gives a stirring speech about how he used to suck but now he wants to save the world and his super bestest love-forever crush Naruto and please help him out because he's just a kid and can't do it himself!!! And then all the ninjas are like HEART EYES MOTHERFUCKER and basically swear to follow him into hell like he's the MC of a really intense ninja dating game.

Anyway so they go out to meet the forces and the first people they run into are zombie Kages (no but seriously) and his dad is one of them. And his dad is rude as heck and goes "YOU HAVE FRIENDS?!" (literally the line) which was hilarious both in and out of context and gave birth to a fantastic reaction gif. Gaara basically z-snaps his way through a conversation and then his buddy Tsuchikage, Old Guy Supreme who got sassed the most at the Kage summit, hovers on up and brags about Gaara to his dad which is honestly the cutest granddad moment of the series. For some reason this makes Gaara's dad have a complete change of heart and he's like "sorry son, here are all the ways I wrecked your life also your mom didn't hate you and neither did your uncle it's all my fault I did everything." And Gaara, because he's looking to be canonized as a saint or perhaps just trying to acquire more fans for his club back home, cries and goes "thanks Dad I feel better now."

SERIOUSLY.

This freaking show.


PERSONALITY:

Gaara's had something of a tumultous upbringing. HEAR ME OUT.

Setting aside special circumstances, the world of Naruto is where children are trained to be professional bodyguards and killers at the tender young age of way-too-fuckin'-young. There's a "grow up quick" mentality among children who enter the shinobi profession, where kids are treated as adults as young as twelve. Sometimes younger, if the situation calls for it. Slap a knife in that babe's hand, send 'em off to war; that's the policy of the Five Nations. It can lend a skewed sense of right and wrong among those in the ninja villages, who view death much more casually and are accustomed to extreme violence.

However, even with that kind of measuring stick, Gaara's had an extremely violent past. He was born as a jinchuuriki, which basically just means he had a demonlike creature sealed inside of him. In his case, the tailed beast Shukaku was sealed into him prenatally and then he was brought into this world with some dang unfortunate circumstances. Pretty much the only person who loved him unconditionally died giving birth to him, so that sucked. Not a great start in this world, happy birthday kiddo.

His early childhood is a depressing montage of fear and anger from the other villagers; he was weird, because he didn't sleep out of fear the demon inside of him would possess him and eat his personality (no really Shukaku threatened that because I guess he's mean mostly but also his fragile flower feelings were damaged in the past, welcome to Naruto) and he was awkward and painfully shy and didn't know how to talk to people. Also the sand that always followed him around would attack the crap out of people if he was agitated or felt endangered, which was pretty often so that didn't do him any favors. He was isolated from his family, distrusted by just about everyone and it made him a very unstable child.

His dad decided like, wow my monster kid is unstable, I should try to have him killed by the only person who likes him and then have that guy tell him that his mom died hating him, this'll work out it's fine it's fine.

It was not fine.

Little Gaara flipped his shit and his psyche took a serious blow. Heartache upon heartache had finally taken its toll and he came to the rough conclusion that the only person who could love him is himself, so he was gonna love the shit out of himself and kill anybody who threatened his existence. It was how he justified his reason for being alive, because what's the point if nobody else wants you alive? He relied and depended only on himself, and even after successive assasination attempts by his dad he stood by it. 'Cause he killed the assassins. He also emotionally, psychologically and probably also physically tormented his siblings over the years, killed a whole lotta people because he was bored, because Shukaku was screaming for blood in his head, because he was actually deeply upset and in pain and didn't know how to deal with it beyond making the thing disturbing him go away, permanently. For six years, Gaara lived like this, until he came across one Uzumaki Naruto.

To say Naruto is the catalyst for his transformation is accurate. Not only does Naruto beat him down into submission (a prerequisite, considering Gaara's go-to conflict resolution method was to crush anyone with an opposing opinion into sandy sausage), but he tells Gaara that he understands. He understands. He understands the pain of being alone, he understands the agony of being denied an existence, but he was pulled out of that hell by people who cared about him and he would never let anything happen to them.

And then Gaara's siblings come to scrape him up off the ground instead of squash his tired little skull into the dirt, and Gaara begins to reconsider his entire worldview.

The paradigm shift Gaara undergoes might have taken a while when one looks at it as a day-by-day process, but in retrospect he changed incredibly fast. Within a matter of months he's stopped killing people for funsies, stopped terrorizing his siblings and gotten much, much quieter and reserved. He seems to fold into himself and think an awful lot, indulge more in trying to understand people and make connections with them rather than ignore them or kill them. He even joins the regular shinobi ranks and takes on a student, which does him absolute wonders. When he announces his candidacy for the (now vacant) position of Kazekage and his brother points out that a lot of the villagers are mega creeped out by Gaara and the tons of murdering he did, Gaara's like "no that's cool but if I'm gonna stop being looked at as a monster and needed instead as a person I'm gonna have to work real hard like that Naruto guy." Paraphrased.

Perhaps it's the suffering he had early on his life, or maybe because of all the suffering he caused, but Gaara's got a very strong old-soul feel while still managing to retain an almost childlike approach to relationships. He takes things seriously; he takes being Kazekage seriously, he takes his responsibilities and his reform seriously. He takes the safety of his family, friends and people very, very seriously. Maybe part of it is a desire to make up for the wrongs he'd done, but Gaara doesn't often openly dwell on the past. More likely, it's the desires of that lonely little boy from years ago manifesting in his adolescence. One of the last things he asks himself before his death is if he became a needed existence in the end. It's difficult to change one's personality and actions and habits, but even more difficult to change the way one thinks about oneself.

Gaara has come along way from the closed off, selfish and tortured kid he was just five years ago. He tends to speak with a lot of weight to his words; generally his conversation comes in drips or gushes, not a lot of in-between. His way of relating to people outside of professional meetings is awkward and ham-fisted. He doesn't observe social rules or niceties, speaks plainly and bluntly and keeps a lot to himself unless he feels it's absolutely necessary to divulge. He speaks more with actions over words, most likely because he never exchanged words with people in that dark six-year murder spree period without the intent of threatening someone or getting what he wanted.

And despite his reform, Gaara is still pretty ruthless and efficient. He doesn't disregard people or attack without reason, but he doesn't hesitate to defend or launch an offensive to protect someone. He might be gentler than he was before but he's still a soldier, and honestly still probably has a lot of that weapon mentality, that kill-or-be-killed instinct that is sewn into a lot of shinobi. He's also a military leader, both of his village and of the Alliance, and it's his duty to take out enemies as quickly as possible to avoid as many casualties on his side as he can. He even tells his (revived zombie) father (DO NOT ASK) that he can understand why his father tried to have him killed. A leader protects the village, he says. It's a pragmatic approach to a painful issue.

Because of his difficulty to communicate and relate to people openly and in a way that most people recognize, Gaara can appear emotionless and unreadable. His expression is decidedly neutral 90% of the time, and his voice tends toward the monotone except for in pretty emotionally-charged situations. He tends to use brusque and masculine language, never using two words when one would suffice, and god save you if the weight of the conversation rests on his shoulders.

Still, he makes an effort when he can. It's not as necessary as Kazekage because his plate is generally full and people gonna talk to him anyway. Gaara makes an effort to listen though, really listen and process what people are saying to him, to read between the lines. Where before he didn't care about anyone else's motivations, now he pays attention like whoever he's talking to is the most important book he's ever going to read, and then he'll make comments that just cut right to the heart of the matter. It's a brutal kind of sincerity, where he means everything he says and doesn't waste time with filler words or idle talk (partially because he doesn't really know that he's supposed to). His communication with other people tends to have a purpose, whether that purpose is to convince them of something or just to get to know them better, but it lends to him a degree of painful honesty that makes his motivations easy to understand, so long as he's taken at face value.


POWERS:

Sand Manipulation: Gaara has a wide array of control over sand. He'll arrive with his special sand he carries around in the gourd on his back, but given enough time and energy he can manipulate any kind of sand on an enormous scale. He can make tsunamis of sand, can harden it into armor, can use it to crush opponents into blood mush... He can use it to grab people, levitate himself, he can use it as a sensory tool (sight & touch)- Really, his ability to use sand extends as far as his imagination. He's gotten pretty imaginative with it, too.

Chakra Manipulation: Pretty much all ninjas above novice level can do this. It helps them run real fast, walk over water or up vertical walls/stand upside-down on shit, stuff like that. Chakra is basically the combination of life energy and spiritual energy, but as most of Gaara's chakra seems to be used for sand manipulation, he doesn't really use much of it for other techniques besides those mentioned.

Absolute Defense: With him Gaara carries a giant gourd-shaped container that holds special sand. This sand can be both manipulated by him and also acts without his will or knowledge to sense attacks and provide protection; it is faster and more agile than his usual sand manipulation. Occasionally, when he is under extreme emotional pressure it will attack the focus of his distress, but it's a very rare thing and hasn't happened in years and years. Gaara keeps a pretty tight leash on himself to prevent that.


〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

Test Drive 1 || Test Drive 2 || Test Drive 3


LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

It's culture shock, he tells himself as he spends yet another day fumbling through handling technology and societal rules and looking like a hopeless moron. Gaara's learned a lot about patience since becoming Kazekage back home, but he's never been especially good at it. When he has to ask for the third time how to use this 'debit card' thing and why he can't pay for his groceries normally and the cashier gives him this impatient but pitying look and asks him, "Aren't kids supposed to be better with this stuff than adults?" it takes everything he has to not leave everything at the counter and walk out. I'm smart back home, he wants to snap, but he doesn't and he settles for glaring while the cashier demonstrates and snatches up his belongings.

At least he doesn't have to use the bus system, though flying around on his sand has attracted a few stares. Like that even matters. He's gotten stared at for way worse.

Still, this isn't like before. Things have been hard for him before back home; really hard, very hard, but there was at least always something to do. It's the idleness, the lack of purpose and direction that's really wrecking him; piled on top of that is the incompetence with things that almost everyone else seems to find simple and he's never felt more out of place, not even in a village that hated him. At least there he still knew how to buy food.

He's lucky that Naruto's teammate is here, honestly. They barely exchanged more than two words back home, but that connection to his old life is a vital one. Not because Sai refuses to call him anything other than Kazekage-sama or something like that, but the acknowledgement that somewhere he's needed and wanted, that the world he desperately wants to get back to really does exist- just the reminder is enough. He might not know what to do or where to go or how to get there, but at least he's not alone in it.

Gaara has to wonder if that's not the root of the problem as he unlocks his front door and enters a routine that's only just barely starting to set in. Maybe he took his circumstances for granted back home; Kankuro and Temari were always at his side, and though he spent a lot of time isolated it was almost entirely by choice, after the attempted assassination on the rooftop. It was something Naruto had pointed out to him, that in order to form bonds with people he'd have to keep trying, over and over, until he achieved his goal. He'd had to work hard for that back home, but maybe he'd slacked off toward the end. He had his siblings, he had all of his people in the Sand who would support him no matter what. He'd created for himself a safety net which is good, but he had no experience building relationships with people he had absolutely no ties with. Even Naruto and the other ninja from the Leaf, he still had connections with somehow. Sai was a perfect example of that; their mutual respect of Naruto gave them something to talk about.

But here there were no shinobi, no Kage, no specific need for his gifts and few opportunities to put them to use in the way to which he was accustomed. There was crime fighting, he supposed, but it was almost a laughable notion considering what he used to do back home. Ninja stopped and performed what would be considered crimes here indiscriminately, depending on what the job called for. He can't see himself going outside and snatching up petty thieves with his sand, being thanked by people who shook his hands and had no idea how many lives he's taken with them.

There has to be something he can do. There has to be. Though it seems an exhaustingly monumental task, until he can find a way to return home to the people who need him, he would have to find a way to make himself needed here. He would have to try and form bonds here, if he didn't want to be alone.


FINAL NOTES: NADA