Hadriel Application

[demonsional]

PLAYER
Player name: Danielle
Contact: ddsapphire
Characters currently in-game: N/A

CHARACTER
Character Name: Hayden
Character Age: Appears somewhere ambiguously between 9 and 11, but at least claims to be somewhere between 120 and 150 depending on the conversation.
Canon: Original
Canon Point: Before receiving a particularly important letter to deliver to Satan. After getting run over by Anubis' limo.
World Description: Hayden is from a version of the Underworld that encompasses the negative (or just generally unspectacular) afterlives of different religious and cultural beliefs. Technically, he's just from your typical fire-and-brimstone Hell, because that's where demons come from, but has managed to climb his way up out of that pit and reside in a subset of the Underworld reserved generally for the souls of those who have no subscribed belief of the afterlife; no chosen God to take them. At the border of this land and the steep drop off back into Hell, Satan has erected a skyscraper from which he conducts his affairs. It's here that Hayden works. Heaven (or Paradise), also exists, but in a completely different realm that's much, much more highly guarded. Bunch of stuck-up elites.

The only other important thing to know about Hayden's world is the way that demons work. Basically, demons are born in two methods: the old fashioned way, and the corruption of human souls. Naturally, it's more common for demons to just breed with one another and create a swarm off offspring that are in a constant state of killing one another (Hayden himself comes from one such emotionally unattached brood), but the deadliest and dangerous demons are often the ones who were human once before. This is because they have a better understanding of emotions, and had to have experienced some sort of acute sense of hatred, rage, or other strong negative emotion to have become what they are now.

In this setting, demons are mostly all forbidden to remove themselves from Hell without the express permission of Satan or another important Underworld figure. And, naturally, they're barred from escaping the Underworld as a whole (except for in the rare instances of a demonic summoning or other such rift that one is able to escape from). Demons getting a free pass to the mortal realm would break loose all chaos. And, of course, no demon in history has ever managed to penetrate the walls of Heaven.

History: Born from a fairly generic demon brood, Hayden almost immediately stood out from his siblings. Unlike them, he was born with a soul and the capacity to love--an unprecedented feat for a demon, and a newborn with no prior influence from the outside world. But...well, Hayden doesn’t really like to dwell on his past. It’s pretty boring and also makes him sad. The parts he can remember, anyway. He doesn't understand, himself, how he's different from other demons, though he can see how they treat people differently than he does. For a while Hayden, being an exceptionally cowardly and gentle demon, managed to find solace in the shadow of one of his tougher sisters (who he decided to name Helen as he had given himself the name Hayden). She was the only one who didn't leave him to fend for himself, though nobody could quite understand why. Unfortunately, that sanctuary ultimately vanished when she found a place working under demon nobility. Hayden, being weak, soft, and generally embarrassing to be around, was left high and dry.

Most of his years thereafter were spent alone. He lived as best he could, remained positive, and tried not to take it personally when some of the other demons his age pushed him around or made fun of him for not aging faster and not being recruited into a more powerful demon's domain. Eventually, stumbling literally headfirst into the only stroke of luck he’s ever had, Hayden landed himself a job as Satan’s assistant. Like, basically literally, he teleported onto Satan's desk and as annoyed as he was, the ruler of the Underworld figured it would be more worthwhile to put him to work than to punish him for trespassing. The term “assistant” is, of course, being used generously here. For the most part he’s been running messages and delivering coffees for the better part of a century. He’s been kept so busy that he hasn’t had the chance to grow—both literally and figuratively.

Although he has a job, Hayden still doesn't have any official sort of home or family, so he spends most of his time slumming it in the streets and eating whatever he can find. His life has mostly been based off of survival, and he's not really getting paid for his work in anything other than "recognition". The best thing Hayden's ever had going for him is the time he's spent in his life praying that someday, if he's really very good and follows all the rules, someone in Heaven will take notice of him and invite him to live with them instead. He thinks it must be very nice up there, and maybe he was really meant to be born an angel instead of a demon and someone just made a bit of a mix-up.

Personality: The crux of Hayden's personality revolves around the fact that he is, more or less, a child. Where he's from, demons grow as they learn and as they develop mentally. Hayden abruptly stopped maturing and has continues to maintain the mentality of a small child for upwards of a century, now. He responds to life with a childlike curiosity, innocence, and overall excitement. His energy patterns often match that of a child on a sugar rush: bursts of loud, almost manic exuberance followed by abrupt, sleepy crashes. Although he doesn't appear to have the capacity to retain information, he does enjoy being taught new things, and finds joy in the world as it presents itself around him.

But why is Hayden stuck this way? Why has he stopped maturing so fully, and what's the motivation behind it? In short, he's afraid of growing up, and he's afraid of negativity. He's in denial that he ever has to change or properly face the bad things that often surround him, and has convinced himself that staying small and dependent and oblivious will protect him. Things stay good if you refuse to acknowledge that they are anything else. Being what is essentially the opposite of a demon stuck in a demon's world and in a demon's body inspires in his psyche the fragility of a piece of glass being rattled in a box without padding. He's seen his sister Helen, his old protector, who used to be nice and kind to him, grow disillusioned and cynical. She grew up, but with it she became cold and angry, and Hayden fears the same thing happening to him. At the same time he thinks, or hopes, that if he acts the same as he always did, she'll somehow come back to him. She'll become nice again, and good again, and they can escape Hell together and live somewhere nicer. A part of him knows none of this is possible. He knows that he'll never go to Heaven, no matter how good he is. But what if the moment he lets that reality in, he changes into something he's always been afraid of?

So Hayden focuses on the good, instead. It doesn't matter where he is: Hayden will take a bad situation and try to find something good in it. The driving force between his joyful and optimistic outlook is his capacity for hope. He believes wholeheartedly that good things will come to those who keep faith. It's incredibly ironic: a demon who looks up to the ideals of the angels above him, but that doesn't bother him. All he knows is that he wants to be good and never lose his spirit in the idea that someday his goodness will pay off. Not a greedy or selfish person, Hayden doesn't feel entitled to rewards for his niceness. He wants to be good simply for the sake of being good. He believes that someday his physical appearance will just naturally reflect to show the goodness that he has. After all, he's always known badness to show on his kind. So why can't it be possible?

Aside from his seemingly limitless energy and short attention span, Hayden's childlike attitude also surfaces in the way he interacts with the people he meets. He's trusting to a fault, believing almost anything anyone tells him to a ridiculous extent--because, well, why should he assume someone is lying to him? He loves making friends and talking to people, because back home in the Underworld people would usually only talk to him to order him around or say unkind and harsh things. Every positive interaction he has with another individual encourages him to keep talking. For the same reasons, every positive interaction that he has with a person encourages him to believe that they are absolutely going to be best friends forever. This loyalty that he'll feel for a person as their new good friend is hard to shake, as it's awfully hard to disillusion him or inspire him to feel negatively toward someone. People are nice! This is a statement that he believes to his very core. If he didn't believe in humanity, he wouldn't know how to try and be good all the time.

On the flip side, when that extreme energy wears out, it's not uncommon to experience Hayden when he's crashing. When he's not running about, he's incredibly lazy, spending his time finding strange places to sleep in. More than that, he constantly seems to be in a state of hunger. This wouldn't be an important fact to note about his personality if it didn't have a clear effect on the way he talks and things that he does. Wanting to eat something, anything, even if it's just to be able to chew something in order to keep his mouth busy, drive him forward when he's too tired to run around shouting and inspiring chaos. He'll talk about food, forage for food, cry for food, and even beg for food from strangers. He'll eat things that aren't edible if he thinks it looks like it might be fun to chew on, or just because someone offers it to him.

In short, Hayden is a loud, excitable, and very hungry alley rat who just wants to make people happy. He wears his heart on his sleeves and his emotions are easily changed, but everything he does he does out of a sense of goodness and affection for life. He's not perfect, and certainly not graceful or well spoken (in fact, he's nearly illiterate), but if nothing else he absolutely tries his best every day. Well, when he remembers to. Or isn't being distracted.

Inventory: crumbs
Abilities: Other than his myriad of super-special abilities including talking very loudly, begging for table scraps, and digesting things that he really shouldn't be eating in the first place (like plastic candy wrappers), Hayden only has one real special ability: inter-dimensional travel. Actually, he can create portals as well as manipulate dark energy, but has spectacularly poor control over both of these abilities, mostly due to a lack of practice. As far as the dark energy goes, it's unlikely he'll ever try to use it in any capacity that amounts to anything. As far as portals go, however, he at least has enough practice to utilize them to a usable extent.

Unlike most demons from the realm he comes from, Hayden can create portals to worlds and times that should be beyond his reach (an incredibly rare ability when compared to simply being able to teleport to different locations within the same space). Knowing this more in theory as opposed to in practice, he generally just uses his portals as a means to jump across the underworld city that he resides in, not unlike standard teleportation.

Naturally, in Hadriel, he'd be unable to teleport outside of the city--he wouldn't really know where to start to try even if he was. And furthermore, being terrible at navigating unfamiliar spaces, the use of his power will be clumsy and disoriented, likely causing him to end up either running into someone (or something) or putting himself in a completely random part of town that he didn't anticipate. Honestly, he just doesn't know what he's doing.

Flaws: Overall, Hayden would classify as one of those exceptional characters who has never done a damn thing wrong in their life. He does have his flaws, though. They're mostly small and forgivable, but easily noticed. He has a bad habit of forgetting things--promises, jobs, what he ate in the morning--often causing him to be negligent to himself as well as others. He's impulsive and definitely loud, he can't keep secrets, and overall he's just hard to control. His energy keeps him from holding still, so he ends up all over the place. Hayden means well, and his flaws are hardly catastrophic...but he's certainly very annoying (and unintentionally destructive).

SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: TDM Toplevel!