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One may smile, and smile

And be a villain

Created on 2006-05-06 14:54:14 (#10182296), last updated 2006-10-26

13 comments received, 345 comments posted

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6 Journal Entries, 0 Tags, 6 Memories, 0 Virtual Gifts, 15 Userpics

Basic Info

Name:	Schuldig

Bio

"He had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken."
- The Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

Character Name: Schuldig; 'The Mastermind'
Fandom: Weiss Kreuz
Appearance: Schuldig isn't a man who's easily missed in a crowd. He's quite tall, roughly six feet, and very lanky. His vivid reddish-orange hair is long and habitually tousled, as if he doesn't give much thought to it, and extends in a narrowing tail down his back; his eyes are an intense blue. He's almost always wearing an arrogant smirk, no matter what's going on around him; it's only when there's a clear danger to himself, such as combat, that his expression turns serious. He actually looks a bit older than he is, both because of the height and because of the frighteningly jaded smile he always wears; most people wouldn't believe that much cynicism could be developed in so few years. His outfit is almost always the same - white slacks and shoes and a blue button-up shirt beneath a long, dark green trenchcoat with large gold buttons. Combined with a yellow headband, on which are perched maroon sunglasses he never wears, and his red hair, one suspects that Schuldig is either colorblind or deliberately dresses for effect. (What effect, who can say?)
Age: 22

Character History: Although most people would expect it, Schuldig doesn't really come from a bad background. His parents weren't overly affectionate - not so much from lack of inclination as from a lack of time; his family wasn't exactly well-off and both his parents worked two jobs - but there was no abuse, no unkindness. As Keane was an only child, what little interaction he did have with his parents was the sort that, if it had been applied to him more frequently, would have likely resulted in his being spoiled. But a great deal of Keane's childhood - before he was old enough to attend school and then, after he began, after school hours had ended - was spent home alone, with a neighbor checking in on him infrequently at the behest of his parents. Whether it came naturally or whether it was as a result of this isolation, Keane developed into an intelligent but extremely quiet and withdrawn child who preferred watching people to interacting with them. Aside from his intellect, the only remarkable thing about him were the uncannily accurate flashes of insight into other people he displayed, but this was generally attributed more to his being observant or picking things up somewhere than to anything else.

Keane's introverted personality made it all the more dramatic when, one day, a twelve-year-old Keane began to scream incoherently and clutch at his head for no reason at all in the middle of one of his classes. No one could account for it, and the apparent fit passed even before the school nurse made it to the classroom. Keane himself either had no idea what had happened or chose not to throw any light on the matter, as he denied any memory of the event. After some deliberation, the matter was dubbed a 'stress episode' and would have been dropped there...

Unfortunately, what had been one isolated incident soon became two, then several, then a pattern of incidents. Keane was quickly labeled as having a neurological disorder of some kind, and his parents were advised to get him diagnosed and treated as rapidly as possible. They spared no expense in taking him to the finest doctors they could afford, but the problem turned out not to be money; no matter what specialists they took Keane to, no doctor could find anything wrong with him, and without a diagnosis there was no possibility of a treatment. With Keane's screaming convulsions coming more frequently and with greater intensity, his parents began to fear that he would simply die before anyone could figure out what was happening to him.

It was at this point that Rosenkreuz chose to present itself.

The representatives of the school met with Keane and his parents separately, and the stories each received were vastly different. It was explained to the parents that Rosenkreuz was a very specialized facility that could help their son for, to their amazement, a very minimal cost; the only stipulation was that Keane would have to remain there for an unspecified amount of time in order to help further their research, which they were assured was a noble cause that would benefit all of mankind and would do no harm whatsoever to Keane himself.

Keane got a decidedly different version. First, it was explained to him that the curious insight into people he'd always had was, in fact, latent telepathic ability; no one else had recognized it because, outside of Rosenkreuz, there were almost no genuine specialists in the field to note the signs. Furthermore, the fits he'd been having were signs that his telepathy was, with the onset of puberty, maturing and strengthening with the rest of him - the unfortunate side effect of this was that his mind, unable to consciously direct this newfound ability or filter out any of what it could pick up, was being overwhelmed by input; it was explained as being roughly akin to a power surge knocking out a computer. Without training, his own abilities could wind up overwhelming him - if not actually driving him insane, then simply overloading him with so much input from outside sources that he would appear to be insane to others.

Happily, Rosenkreuz was, in fact, a training facility for the gifted, and as Keane's telepathy was already looking to be the strongest manifestation of such a talent as they had ever seen, they would happily take him on if he was interested...

Both Keane and his parents agreed, although neither side quite knew what they were getting into.

Keane's years at the academy were rather brutal, as the learning curve was a steep one. Very few of the talents trained at Rosenkreuz ever speak of their time there, and Schuldig is no exception, but it was during his time there that he ceased being Keane and took on the German word 'Schuldig' as his own. It was also the time he first began developing his sadistic inclinations towards other people; perhaps the knowledge that it was others who had caused his suffering in the first place engendered a grudge, in the face of which the flowering ability to turn suffering back upon them was too much to resist. In any case, his entire personality began to shift, so that by the time he left Rosenkreuz at eighteen he barely resembled the boy he'd been when he'd entered it - which, in his own opinion, was just as well.

Schuldig had come to despise his old self, and the first thing he did after leaving Rosenkreuz was to purge any remnants of it. His telepathy and powers of mental manipulation, having been tempered in the academy, were second to none, and he used these to find everyone in Germany who'd ever known him as a child and, with surgical precision, extracted himself from their memories. That, combined with some creative burglary to steal all physical evidence such as photographs, effectively erased the existence of Keane Fuchs from the face of the earth.

That task completed, he returned to a small group of fellow Rosenkreuz talents, the four of them having come to naturally band together against the place and the world in general - Farfarello, a more-than-half-psychotic Irishman unable to feel pain, whose lust for self-mutilation was only matched by his love for inflicting it upon others and his personal grudge against God; Nagi Naoe, a boy who had become an outcast once his telekinetic abilities made themselves apparent and who had sworn vengeance upon the entirety of humanity as a result; Brad Crawford, an American precognitive with some boxing experience and a bureaucratic flair the others lacked, which more or less naturally elevated him to the position of leader of the group; and Schuldig himself. With each member bringing such impressive talents to the table, they reasoned, nothing in the world could stand in the way of anything they set out to do.

However, they lacked connections and funds, both of which Crawford - with more insight into the future than any of the rest of them had - informed them they would need. In order to develop some, they began offering their talents as a group to the highest bidder, marketing themselves - as Schuldig dubbed them - as Schwarz. It wasn't long before this highest bidder presented itself, in the form of a massive underground organization called Esset.

Schwarz' duties for Esset were carried out in exemplary fashion, to say the least. They were assigned as bodyguards to one Reiji Takatori and his family; Esset believed Takatori would help them reach some of their own goals by achieving his own and so sent him Schwarz to further them. One of their very first missions with them involved overseeing the (almost) utter destruction of the family of a bank employee, set up to posthumously take the fall for some of Takatori's own crimes - a family named Fujimiya. Schuldig himself found the only relatively unscathed survivor, Ran Fujimiya, in the wreckage of his former home and could have presumably ended it there, but his delight in other people's pain couldn't possibly allow for him to end the exquisite suffering of a boy who'd just seen his entire family ripped from him, so he simply taunted the half-conscious boy and left him to his own devices. Even if he had known that the boy Ran would one day become Aya Fujimiya, part of the group of assassins poised to stand directly in Schwarz' way, he would have made the same choice.

There was very little Schwarz actively undertook in Takatori's name that didn't get accomplished. Kidnappings, murders, cover-ups, frequent thwartings of the assassination attempts upon his own life and the lives of his sons - Schwarz proved themselves incomparable allies and vicious foes. The only time they actively earned Takatori's displeasure was when Schuldig, ever unburdened by foresight or thoughts of consequences or even reserves of common sense, went too far with his sadism and - at the climax of causing mental anguish for one of the team members of Weiss, the assassin group - wound up, alongside Farfarello, getting Takatori's beloved daughter killed. Takatori was so enraged by this that he beat both Schuldig and Farfarello with a golf club until some smooth lying by Crawford convinced him that Weiss was in fact responsible.

Eventually, Takatori's ultimate goal was, with Schwarz's help, achieved, and he was made the Prime Minister of Japan, with his first career move being to declare the men of Weiss as wanted criminals. Of course, his second - and unwisest - move was to immediately turn on Schwarz, declaring that he no longer needed them and obviously didn't trust them to just go running about beholden to no one. Only Crawford's intervention prevented an immediate firefight, as Schuldig was obviously infuriated and the others weren't exactly thrilled, either, but as it was they were left to spectate while Takatori went about his business.

Of course, inevitably, Weiss showed up and began slaughtering their way through the building, by now all of them having personally been wronged by Takatori's family at one point in time or another. Takatori, suddenly finding himself bodyguard-less in a highly dangerous situation, fled to the protection of Schwarz - only to discover that Schwarz wasn't interested in protecting them anymore. As they quite amusedly informed him, Esset's goal in assigning them to him was to help him destabilize Japan, not to put a ruthless dictator into power - certainly not one that bit the hand that fed him - and as such they no longer held any obligations to him. They abandoned Takatori to the tender ministries of Weiss and returned to Esset for new orders.

From then on, Schwarz began to play a much more visible role in the destabilization of Japan. From driving people insane through music concerts to kidnapping girls to dousing unsuspecting street walkers with self-lighting napalm to poisonously addictive bottled water to encouraging a group of femme fatales in a spine-stealing scheme, Schwarz began to systematically terrorize the country in subtle ways - usually through plans of Schuldig's own devising and implementing, as no one had such creatively wicked ideas or could get people to do as he wanted quite so easily. And, of course, all of it revolved around the seemingly halted aging processes of one girl - Aya Fujimiya's comatose little sister, whom Schwarz cheerfully kidnapped from the people who had kidnapped her first.

Esset wanted Aya's sister in order for her to serve as the vessel for an ancient evil they were trying to summon, something Schwarz couldn't really have cared less about and didn't expect to work in any case. When the time for the summoning ceremony came, Schwarz gave Esset a lookalike, absconded with Aya's sister, and let Weiss deal with two of the three heads of Esset before they, personally, took out the third - after demonstrating that their own powers had advanced to the point where even the greatest psychic talents of Esset couldn't touch them.

Then, of course, came the dramatic showdown with Weiss, there to retrieve Aya's sister or die trying. Unfortunately, before the battle could be definitively decided for either side, the keyhole of the world opened up - practically at their feet - and Weiss and Schwarz alike were engulfed in darkness before they even knew what the darkness was.

Schuldig woke up on Hollow Bastion shortly afterwards, and pretty much skipped directly over some of the confused-vagabond stage of being a Heartless refugee thanks to his ability to simply glean the answers from the minds around him. Since then, he's been idly wandering the worlds, causing - for him - relatively quiet mayhem to keep himself entertained while keeping an eye out for Crawford. Although Schuldig has more than enough wicked inspiration to go around, without Crawford his plans lack direction and he's well aware of it - not to mention that Crawford has the common sense necessary to keep Schuldig from embarking on suicidal courses of action.

Character's Personality: Schuldig is a hedonist, without question. He enjoys nothing so much as enjoying himself, and unfortunately quite a lot of 'enjoying himself' falls under the alternative heading of 'making other people's lives utter hell'. Schuldig delights in causing chaos and pain, more or less for its own sake, and with his access to others' innermost secrets he's perfectly positioned to do horrible amounts of psychological damage(his favorite kind). One of his favorite, and more innocent, pastimes is to taunt people with hints of what he knows, and the possibilities of who he could tell.

Schuldig is relatively high-maintenance for anyone who wants to stay on his good side. There's nothing he enjoys more than being highly valued, and then having this made obvious by the person who recognizes his worth. He also luxuriates in being the center of attention - he can't stand being ignored, since this suggests that there's something more important than him to be paying attention to. He's also quite vain about his looks, and just generally likes being made much of.

He also indulges in physical pleasures whenever he's not too busy soaking up mental ones - generally alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, sprawling on things, caffeine, and sex, in ascending order of preference. He's quite fond of rum, since it's basically alcohol made with sugar, and particularly enjoys coffee-laced rum because then it's practically an adrenaline cocktail; caffeine and sugar are important to Schuldig largely because they help keep his mind moving quickly. Cigarettes he generally only smokes when stressed, not as a customary habit - unlike sprawling, which he does every chance he gets, with only cats edging him out as champion sprawlers and all-around sensual beings. As for sex...well, Schuldig enjoys pleasure and sex is pleasure so intense it actually shuts his mind down for a few seconds. Why wouldn't he love it? He's extremely promiscuous and will generally proposition anyone he judges would be attractive with their clothes off, from his own teammates (with the exception of Nagi; Schuldig is at least somewhat mindful of the ages of those he tries to bed) to bitter enemies, at least provided he doesn't note any inclination to gut him during the afterglow.

Character's Strengths: Obviously the strongest card Schuldig had in his hand is his telepathy. He can see what most people are thinking - there are some minds it's wisest for him not to go into - and use it against them. This serves him exceedingly well in the few situations where he's in fights; he can 'see' a person's intention to attack him and exactly how and when they're going to do it, all from within their own mind, and dodge accordingly, making him almost impossible to hit even with up to four opponents at once after him. And, when he really wants to go the full distance, he can actually usurp the brain functions of another person, forcing them to do his bidding - he can't tell people what to think (although he can, in the vein of subliminal messages, subtly encourage a course of action in a person without their ever being aware the idea wasn't theirs to begin with) but he can tell their bodies what to do.

Beyond the mental advantages - although those are considerable - Schuldig doesn't have that much else going for him. He's a good shot with a gun, and exceedingly fast, and has a notable talent for leaping around rooftops with breaking legs(his own, anyway), and he's extremely intelligent(which isn't to say he's wise), and he is trilingual - German, Japanese, and English - but beyond that he's on his own.

Character's Weaknesses: Schuldig, fortunately for the world in general, has a plethora of weaknesses. Most immediately obvious is his lack of common sense and foresight and any sort of concern for consequences; a man who will set out to torment the girlfriend of one of his enemies, without minding the fact that she's his boss' daughter, is not someone who is blessed with much immediate insight into his future. Of all of Schwarz, Schuldig is the most emotional; it's easier to make him angry or cocky or simply to flatter him into a good mood than it would be with any of the others, although he'd of course be aware if any of this was a deliberate attempt on him.

Further on the mental front - although he has yet to realize it, given that he hasn't really been up against anyone who fits the description yet - Schuldig's telepathy is more or less ineffectual against those contaminated by darkness; the more darkness a person is infected with, the more his mental vision is obstructed. Since Heartless are blank to him as well, it can be inferred that something about the darkness actively disrupts his powers. (It should be noted that evil is not the same as darkness; Bakura and Malificent's minds aren't protected against Schuldig since, no matter how wicked they are, actual darkness isn't involved.) Of course, some minds come with natural - although relatively minimal, without active effort or training - mental shields that have nothing to do with darkness, so mind-reading doesn't always come easy depending on who he's up against, but with Schu's extensive experience and training he can usually make his way past most mental obstacles.

Schuldig's view that people are toys with him to play with can in fact work against him, or if not actively against him than at least work in others' favors. When Schuldig finds a mind that truly fascinates him, one that's unusual to the point of standing out and being something he wants to continue studying, that toy gains 'favorite' status; Schuldig will actually go out of his way to varying degrees, depending on his level of fascination, to preserve the mind and its owner just so he can continue to play with it. In a similar vein, Schuldig isn't really enthusiastic in any way about killing people - when you break a toy, you can't play with it again, so why go that far without a very good reason?

Physically, Schuldig isn't very strong, and he's not a particularly good fighter - he's excellent at dodging, but fighting back is something else altogether. His biggest advantage in combat, when he doesn't have a gun, is that he can avoid being hit while dealing hits himself, but the hits he deals aren't particularly substantial.

Finally, Schuldig is a first-class bastard, and this isn't a fact that's easily hidden. Quite a lot of people can pick up the fact that he's untrustworthy or at least has ulterior motives just by looking at him, and he tends to make people suspicious. Without his mental advantage he'd probably never be able to succeed in lying to people, just because no one would trust anything he said.

Character's Current Relationships:

Brad Crawford; 'The Oracle': Schuldig's relationship with Brad is odd at best. The two are polar opposites and drive each other crazy accordingly; Brad's cool demeanor of disinterest rubs right up against Schuldig's demand to be acknowledged and petted, whereas Schuldig's constant demands for attention and lack of self-restraint make Brad wonder half the time whether a telepath is really worth the bother. Schuldig has an amusing (for spectators) habit of reverting, around Brad, to behavior more commonly associated with petulant teenagers, which Brad generally tolerates in the knowledge that Schuldig will comply when it counts no matter how he bitches and whines. But they do have a sort of affection for each other, and a deep-seated loyalty that isn't immediately apparent but nevertheless exists. Brad is the only person Schuldig will actually obey, if only because Brad has earned the obedience.

Farfarello; 'The Berserker': Farfarello is usually Schuldig's partner in crime, since Brad tends to hang back on the sidelines. Farfarello, being almost physically unstoppable and nearly as sadistic in the physical sense as Schuldig is mentally, pairs up well with the German and the two get along quite well. Schuldig seems to open up more to Farfarello about his powers than any of the others, and Schuldig is one of the few people Farfarello actually talks to without being spoken to first.

Nagi Naoe; 'The Prodigy': Schuldig and Nagi don't seem to have much of a bond. Nagi doesn't show much interest in Schuldig's sadism; he may agree that people deserve to be miserable but he doesn't seem to believe that making them miserable should be enjoyable. Schuldig, for his part, thinks Nagi is far too straight-laced and needs to loosen up, and is generally bored by him. They work together when necessarily, and capably, but that seems to be the extent of it.

Aya Fujimiya; 'Abyssinian': Aya is one of Schuldig's favorite playthings, and with good reason, since Aya's life is one of the most miserable works of art Schuldig has ever had a hand in. Schuldig loves taunting Aya and generally does so at every conceivable opportunity, and then laughs as he dodges the inevitable sword swipes.

Yohji Kudoh; 'Balinese': Yohji is probably Schuldig's second favorite in Weiss, not just because he's also nearly as angsty as Aya(although, sadly, not nearly as often), but because Schuldig and Yohji have a lot in common in terms of their likes, dislikes, and the more casual aspects of their attitude.

Weiss: All of Weiss, as far as Schuldig is concerned, might as well have been created expressly for his amusement. A bunch of tormented, highly strung men with trust issues in close quarters? It's like an interactive sitcom!

Goals: Schuldig's goals are the same now as they've always been - to make the entire human race suffer as much as he possibly can before, possibly, seeing it wiped out. However, he's added the additional goal of tracking down the rest of Schwarz to his list..as well as looking into this Keyblade Master everyone's talking about...

[This is a character journal in use at inluxperpetua for, you guessed it, Schuldig from Weiss Kreuz, and if you think I'm making money off this you're way more optimistic than I am. Real person is at callie_chan.]