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[imaginemeandyuu]

Character Name: Alma Karma

Canon: D. Gray-Man

AU/OC/Previous Game: N/A

Age: ...UHHHH. Born from a hole 9 years earlier already partially grown (approx 10 years) which would make him physically 19 like Kanda (and he's actually a tiny bit older), but appears to be "around Allen's age" (16), but was alive maybe a only few years max before he was put in a coma which would make him experientially like 1-3, but has past life awareness and some flashbacks of being a woman in her late 20s/early 30s which would add some experience th-- I DON'T KNOW! physically late teenage and appears/acts young for his age?!

Appearance: He is tall and lean, with wiry muscles. As undoing his death but not his circumstances pre-death will make him into his Akuma version (see powers/power-cap), he has short ragged dark hair with long eartails, thick eyebrows, a scar over his nose and cheeks (HOW DID HE EVEN GET THIS HE REGENERATES??), and black markings covering him in strange swirling patterns. He has a prehensile devil's tail and an actual glowing halo (so I guess if anyone shares a room with Alma and wants to get some sleep they had best put a bag over his head). A regenerative orb (the core of his body) is buried in the left side of his chest. Image here: http://images.wikia.com/dgrayman/images/e/e6/CharaGreySketchAlma.jpg

Cause of Death: Alma dies after using the Akuma ability to self-destruct. Although he survives it and partially regenerates, the Dark Matter inside him starts to overwhelm him and generally wears away his already brittle body and hold on life. He and Kanda successfully escape together, where he finally dies in Kanda's arms (notably with his soul(s) leaving his body, rather than being destroyed by Dark Matter after all. Yaaaay, partial success?).

Impact of Death: He is very aware of being dead and not being able to return home, and will probably be glad for being unable to go back, if frustrated and upset that he's alive. At the end, he died feeling that he should be dead -- he'd done so many terrible things for revenge, and still couldn't get over his hatred, and all he really wanted was to die with Kanda Yuu at his side so justice could happen but he could still be with Kanda, who he loved. Being alive again will be a bit of a shock and disappointment to him, but it's Alma Karma so he'll fake his way through it like he faked his way through everything else ever.

References Link: http://dgrayman.wikia.com/wiki/Alma_Karma

Character Info:

D.Gray-Man's story is of a world where an ancient evil, the Earl of the Millennium, manipulates human grief to convince others to bind the souls of the dead to machines, which then crawl inside said grieving people to wear their skin and become living weapons called 'Akuma'. When these Akuma mature through murder, they join the Earl of the Millennium and his Noah Apostles, and become armies who infect and murder humanity in the search for the end of the world. The only people who can fight the Akuma are exorcists, accomodators of this strange alien material called Innocence which allows them to form anti-akuma weapons.

Alma Karma has had one of the suckiest lives ever, and in D.Gray-Man, the manga where everything is terrible and nothing is okay, that is saying something. Once upon a time, he was a female accomodator who died in combat against the Akuma. Normally that would be the end of the story, right there; death is pretty final. But the Black Order was rather, well, low on accomodators, and had this lovely science division right there...

The Black Order recovered the bodies of fallen accomodators and started a program to transfer their brains and thus souls and abilities into the bodies of new children, where they rested in holes in the ground filled with crazy science birthing fluid/mud. Most of these new "Second Exorcists" never woke up, but Alma Karma did -- was, in fact, the first of his batch to do so (there are references to there being previous ones, but those were killed either during accomodator training or when they started to recover their past lives, so Alma was alone for much of his own life). So he began accomodator training -- horribly painful, scarring, violent training that killed him repeatedly. But fortunately (or unfortunately) these new bodies regenerated even from death, so he could (or rather, had to) keep going. He did so with a smile and the pretense that he wasn't in pain, scared, or otherwise just some poor kid with no life of his own. Alma kept up the hope that someday he wouldn't be lonely, made friends with basically the entire Science Division, and spent his free time sitting out in the creepy birthing fields, talking to the unconscious exorcists, telling them about his day, reading them books, and otherwise desperately attempting to connect to them.

As you can tell, Alma is someone who hides his pain and smiles through his tears and pretends nothing is wrong, more to keep himself going than for anyone else's benefit. It's not that his happy-go-lucky, energetic and cheerful personality is a lie, but it's also his biggest coping mechanism, and with the amount of things in his life he had to deal with and had no method of escaping from, his coping mechanism became second nature.

Well, finally another babby Second Exorcist woke up -- a grumpy, crabby, stick-in-the-literal-mud asshole called Kanda Yuu. Alma, who loved Kanda at first sight (MYSTERIOUSLY) and was desperately lonely and wanted a friend (NOT SO MYSTERIOUSLY) basically became Kanda's stalker, sneaking around after him everywhere and bawling when Kanda would ignore him or speak unkindly to him -- though these run-ins revealed another part of his personality, which is that under all the bubbly cheer and burbly sobbing was a quick temper. As much as Alma took the brunt of Kanda's annoyance and cried about it, he also yelled back, punched back, and, as necessary, flung Kanda into a few walls. There's no limit to the violence that two regenerating people can do to each other when quarreling! Despite Kanda's dickish nature, though, Alma's love for Kanda never wavered, and as the two interacted -- forced to stay in the same room, with the same few places to go for private time away from the Science Division -- he slowly began to melt Kanda's reluctant ice heart.

Well, some things happened, though, and Kanda was going to be killed by the Science Division as they'd done to previous Second Exorcists who started to remember their past lives. Alma found out about this and flung Kanda into a canal to save him (accidentally freezing him to death in the process but what can you do). Then, in his attempts to dodge capture from the Science Division, he slid down into the depths of the accomodator training room -- where he found his and Kanda's old past life bodies and gained an awareness of his past life -- that his mind and soul were that of the woman who Kanda's past life had loved, and who had loved him in return.

Alma went mad with grief and fear and rage and hate over the betrayal, activated his Innocence, and basically killed everyone. When Kanda finally arrived again (intending to kidnap Alma and flee the Order so the two could live happily), Alma had decided the only possible answer was for them both to die together. Unfortunately, Kanda had remembered enough of his past life that he wanted to live so he could find "that woman" from his memories. IRONY ALERT! So despite himself he and Alma fought and Kanda hacked Alma to pieces over and over and over until he no longer regenerated. Or so Kanda thought.

Well, the Order actually recovered enough remains to regenerate him, stuck his comatose form in a seal, and then decided what to do to keep making science-project exorcists, because Alma had sort of destroyed all of the original bodies and so on. So they stuck an Akuma egg in him and then used his cells to turn him into the "Womb", using him to create half-Akuma, half-human exorcists.

This is not the end for Alma still, because the Noah woke him up, using their psychic's ability to send Kanda (and accidentally also the protagonist Allen Walker and the Noah Road Kamelot) through a mix of Kanda and Alma's memories so Alma could relive them and see what Kanda's feelings were. Alma woke up apparently enraged, still full of hatred, gave himself over to the Akuma's "dark matter" to power himself up, and fought Kanda again, swearing to destroy him and all of the Black Order.

However, he was only apparently enraged, because although his hate for the Order was true, having seen Kanda's POV, he realized that Kanda was looking for "that woman" and he wanted to die without Kanda ever realizing that he was "that woman", because as long as Kanda had him in his heart somehow still he'd still feel like Kanda was 'his' (or rather 'hers'. Belonging to the person Alma is at his core, anyway). With this in mind, he attempted to completely earn Kanda's enmity for "Alma" through a fight to the death, hoping to force Kanda to kill him again before everything was revealed.

Again, here is Alma's inherent immediate attempt to lie about everything important to him to try to maintain the core of what he wants most -- the sense that he isn't alone, is wanted, belongs to someone and has something. He'd rather die fully hated than lose that sense, and become whoever he has to on the outside to get it. Inside, he's so lonely and just wants something of his own that he would rather completely sacrifice 'Alma' than lose that one remaining strand of love that connected some part of himself to Kanda.

However, he explained this to Allen while he thought Kanda was too damaged to hear him but Kanda wasn't, and basically Kanda went fuck this shit, grabbed Alma, and with Allen's help, ran away with him. Alma was himself too damaged to live at that point, and too full of guilt and hatred over the Black Order to want to, but in the end he knew Kanda knew the truth, understood his feelings, still loved him, and stayed by his side when he died, and that's all he really wanted.

I know you said to focus more on the personality, but the events are really what illustrates how Alma behaves, which is why this section was written like this. Without illustrating it, it's hard to express the full depth of how much Alma really is an emotional, mood-swingy person who just wants to be loved -- and will completely lie about himself over and over, even to the point of killing or damaging other people (or himself) in order to try to get some satisfaction for his need.

Post-death in Thusia, as I said, he'll be guilty and still angry but since this will be his 'chance' to live with Kanda (maybe even multiple Kandas!), and since he 'deserves' to be punished with life, he will cover it up and pretend to be happy as much as he can. Maybe he'll even learn to be happy properly.

Old Game Info: N/A

Abilities (before Powercap):
* Enhanced Regeneration - Alma can regenerate even his entire body from total disintegration, but regenerating too often in a row results in his body becoming brittle.
* Innocence - He has a parasitic (internal) Innocence which allows him to produce long curved blades from his right arm.
* As an Akuma - Dark matter blast, paralyzing electric field, can spit spikes, can lengthen and shorten and manipulate his prehensile tail. Also, self-destruct (like all Akuma)

Abilities (after Powercap):
* Enhanced Regeneration - still occurs but is slower. Regenerating too often will keep him brittle longer, which means limbs etc fall off easily if he got damaged earlier.
* Innocence - Can still activate, but it will cause just one blade to emerge from his arm instead of a shitton of huge ones.
* As an Akuma - The dark matter in his body is quite suppressed by the power-cap, so although he can use his Akuma skills, a) they are much weaker and b) it takes a LOT out of him to do it. His tail is normal since it's just a limb he controls. PLEASE NOTE that since the dark matter is suppressed by power-cap, this also means it isn't going to take him over or kill him or otherwise make him blort into a mass of blorting again. Yay!

Items Brought In: N/A

Samples:
You must do two of any of the following four:

-Write a character monologue (internal or external) on a subject of your choice.

Hey, why am I alive?

I don't understand. This isn't right, is it? Why am I awake again, why is there another ceiling for me to stare at? Wasn't this death supposed to be my final death? I don't want to do this again, I don't want another chance! I'm done... I remember the feeling of Yuu's arms around my crumbling body. I remember -- something, a voice? Movement, the feeling of mud around my toes... no, that's impossible. I didn't have any legs left at that point, so it's impossible. But I remember it, feeling myself sink down into the mud at the end...

I remember confessing...

...But that's that! I'm here now, aren't I? No amount of crying "it's not fair" will ever change my fate, right? In a way, maybe this is fair. I've killed so much, after all. I've harmed so many. No matter how much they deserved it, it's still something I've done, and I still hate them even though I committed so many atrocities on them. So, perhaps it's only fair that I don't get to die the way I wanted, the way I dreamed of. Dying together and happy and knowing I'm loved... that's a dream, isn't it? An impossible dream for an artificial human, an akuma, a created atrocity made to bear children into battle.

So there's no point just lying around here dreaming and crying. That's useless! I won't get anywhere like that, and how embarrassing would it be if someone came on me like this? Too embarrassing. Too embarrassing for words. Wipe those tears, Alma! Put that smile on. You know how it feels -- that's right, there's that smile. That's better. Another chance, another lease on life, everyone will want one, so keep that in mind! That's the act to keep up: Everyone obviously wants one.

Now, let's see if I'm alone here or if others are trapped here with me too.


-Fill out the survey below ICly.

Introduce yourself in a few sentences.
Ah, hello? I'm Alma Karma -- it's nice to meet you! I'm a terribly shy person but I'll do my best to get along with you. I don't really know what I'm doing here or what to do about it, but hopefully we can be good friends anyway!

Describe yourself physically.
Honestly, at this point my body's almost an afterthought? I guess it's more or less like a human boy's, and something like an Akuma's, and something like an exorcist's. I think I have a cute face! It's a cute face, right?

What was your childhood like?
… Ah... I met a lot of people who had a lot of strong goals, but in the end, they were hateful people. Perhaps they didn't need to die, but they were hateful people. Ah, but I also met my only friend! So I guess there's that to say for it.

Who is most important to you, and why?
Yuu! It's definitely Yuu! Without a doubt, it has to be Yuu! I can't even think of anyone I'd dream of saying except Yuu, so absolutely, it's Yuu!

When we were young together, when he first came out of the ground, I thought maybe little selfish things like, 'It's like he was born just for me'. And of course that's impossible. Like me, Yuu isn't really a human being, but he's a person, and nobody is really born for anyone else's sake -- right? And we didn't get along at all! We fought and fought even though all I wanted was to talk to him. But even then, he was Yuu. His angry face pissed me off, but it was Yuu's angry face. His rough words hurt my feelings, but they were Yuu's rough words. We were two halves of the same whole so no matter how things ended up being, we were a whole. That was amazing, being 'a whole'. The idea itself is amazing, don't you think? "When I'm with you, I'm whole". Yuu's really admirable. Unlike me, he's got an amazing drive. Unlike me, he's got an infinite capability to reach for and grasp what he wants. I want to see more of that. Forever and ever, I want to see it, however little I deserve it.

Because he's Yuu.

What's your biggest pet peeve?
Hahh... hahaha, haha...

My pet peeve, like, a little annoyance? A small thing that just gets to me, that kind of pet peeve? Not anything I hate, not anything that offends me deeply, just a pet peeve...?

Not having mayonnaise!

That is definitely a pet peeve to me. Mayonnaise is the best food in the universe. To define it as a sauce or something supplementary is a real crime. You can put mayonnaise on anything and it makes it better! So if I go, "I want some mayonnaise on my soba today!" and someone goes "we're out of mayonnaise", that's a definite pet peeve. Don't run out! Restock in time! That's one source of happiness!

Even worse is saying "That's gross." Don't say that. Just don't say that, it's mean.

Do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist? Why?
...

An optimist! Absolutely, an optimist! Don't stop believing, you can make it there if you try! Because so many situations are outside your grasp, you have to create whatever reality will get you some edge, some corner, some clipping of what you want.

No matter what, right? That's optimism.

Where, or how, did you learn your most important skills?
Do I have important skills? I'm not sure I'd go that far, to say that my skills are important. I think to some people they were definitely important. Important enough to ignore any number of humane decisions, important enough to commit any number of atrocities. But I don't think I have any skills I'd consider important.

Except maybe my smile! And that's self-taught.

Do you think world peace is possible?
No, it's impossible. Next question.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict?
Argue. I'm argumentative. I'd like to say that I'm the sort of person who avoids conflict but that's not the case at all. If I get into a situation that upsets me I'll dig my heels in and fight right back. I'm not so valueless to myself that I'd avoid conflict, I guess!

What turns you on the most?
...Haha ummm. I haven't had the sort of opportunity to explore that! That isn't a question I have any kind of answer to. I guess if I had to imagine something -- fantasize, Alma, fantasize -- it'd be my special person's smile. That rare event, which could only exist in a luxurious situation where there's something to smile about. That'd definitely reach deep inside me and grab on, I think.

Anything else you'd like to say?
No, I have nothing I want to say. Not at all.