fran; app info
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman REBORN!
Name: Fran
Age: no canon age given, but I'd put him at 17-18
Physical Description of Character: Fran is slim and short, I'd put him at probably around 5'6" and with a small build. His hair and eyes are matching shades of light green, his hair just between jaw and shoulder length and cut a bit shaggy, with short bangs in the front. He wears a black leather cargo peacoat with beige stripes around the upper arms and forearms, and soft fur at the hood, black skinny pants, and heavy boots. And did I mention that on his head he has a ginormous and very cute frog hat? Yes. And he'll get in a lot of trouble if he takes it off.
reference 1
reference 2
Point in Canon: immediately after the Varia arc, during the 10 days of rest after the Varia ends the battle in Italy against the Millefiore - approximately chapter 228 of the manga
Personality: Fran is a bit of a mess of contradictions - a well-mannered brat, an intelligent airhead, a non-threatening warrior. He's a very calm person, uses insults liberally, and tends to underreact to everything that happens to him, quite difficult to anger, but easy to annoy and fluster.
He enjoys movies and other geeky pastimes, stating in the manga that he was proud of a "horror movie death" he created through illusions, and insisting on having a "sentai pose" (think Sailor Moon transformation sequence) before using his weapon. He calls superiors by their titles, and people he doesn't know generally by "Miss" or "Mister" and the closest he gets to cussing is "pooh" and "pervert." He's intelligent and a quick thinker even while playing the ditz, and can be quite charming when he wants to be. On the other hand, he gets sulky when he's offended or uncomfortable in a situation, and when that happens he tends to whine, lash out and insult people, or passive-aggressively bait people by insulting and then ignoring them. He tends only to give in and ask forgiveness when his physical safety is threatened. Fran doesn't trust easily, no matter how pleasant he's acting, and tends to approach people based on what value they offer him, but he is unswervingly loyal to Xanxus and the rest of the Varia, even if he doesn't like them that much.
Throughout his appearances in the manga, Fran seems to be frequently trying to act "cooler" than he is with the Varia - understandable, since he's the new kid, and with the situation of being forced to wear the frog hat he dislikes and the way he's treated among his superiors, it's almost as if he's going through a sort of hazing. He's trying to fit in with the Varia, taking up the routine they have of insulting each other even while they fight alongside each other, and he always seems to be trying just a little bit too hard and consistently getting it wrong. He'd probably deal with other cohesive groups of people he was trying to enter in the same way, trying a bit too hard to fit in and never quite getting it right. He will keep trying, though. Sometimes longer than other people might want him to.
History of the Character: KHR is a series based around mafia families - though it's got a distinct flavour of shonen manga battles with exotic artifacts and superhuman abilities. It also has a good splash of humour and never takes itself all too seriously, with most of the characters being engaged in love-hate relationships, but all bound together by loyalty to the family. Like many characters in KHR, not a lot of concrete history is given for Fran, especially as he's a relatively recent addition to the cast. However, a lot can be figured out from the backstories of others and the fact that he's part of the Varia.
At the point I'm taking Fran from, there's three main groups - the Vongola, one of the most powerful mafia families; the Varia, a group of the most elite fighters in the Vongola who are loyal to Xanxus, who was not chosen to be the next boss of the Vongola; and the Millefiore, a rival family who wants to take over the world through finding three sets of 7 artifacts (the Vongola rings, the Mare rings, and the Arcobaleno pacifiers). Fran is the most recent member of the Varia, and therefore is pretty used to being treated like the "new guy" in any particular group.
Fran's place in his world - and therefore his personality and how he reacts to the world around him - is pretty tied up with the affairs of his family, the Vongola. To cut a long story short, about 18 years before the point I'm taking him from, the ninth boss of the Vongola decided that an heir was in order, and there were two choices - Xanxus and a distant relative in Japan named Tsuna. Considering Xanxus was much more the "mafia boss" type, with the required brutality and skills, while Tsuna was just a kid, most of the family supported Xanxus. This is the environment Fran grew up in, probably in a pretty normal mafia household, which seems to be sort of strict and slightly old-fashioned, and he grew up supporting Xanxus. However, when he was about 8, it was found out Xanxus wasn't exactly the son of the ninth boss like everyone thought, and the uprising, something Fran probably remembers pretty vividly, was explosive. Xanxus had to be put in stasis, but not before he gathered a particularly loyal following in the Varia, the most elite fighters in the Vongola.
Suffice it to say that Fran grew up training hard to move up the ladder in the Vongola, fighting his way to the top through superior skills with illusions and other fighting techniques, and ended up being next in line when the illusionist of the Varia kicked the bucket. Fran took over relatively recently, and is trying to find his place in the Varia. Most recently, he's been involved in a fight versus the Millefiore where he and the other Varia members were backing up the Vongola (teaming up to fight a shared threat) in Italy and, during a search for the holders of the 6 Mare rings, he and his partner, Belphegor, ran across Bel's supposedly-dead twin brother. After failing to properly engage him, Fran claiming that he'd messed up on purpose just to see their boss fight, Bel and Fran backed up their boss, Xanxus, while he ended Jill.
After the fight was over, the Millefiore leader, Byakuran, contacted the Vongola and Varia through use of his fallen troops' communicators, informing them that the holders of the Mare rings had fakes, and that the true holders of the rings were much more powerful and waiting for a final confrontation after 10 days of rest and training.
It is during the first day of the ten days of rest that I am pulling Fran. He'll probably fall off his bed into Salkia.
Magical Powers/Skills: Fran is a well-trained and highly skilled illusionist. Illusionists in KHR are able to form realistic illusions that have substance and can attack, injure, and even kill the people they are using them against. Illusionists tend to be stronger of mind than body, since the power of their illusions relies on their mental strength and their belief in their own creations. Their illusions can lose their efficacy if they lose concentration or belief, or if the person they are going against has too strong a will and is able to repel the illusions by disbelieving them strongly enough. However, once a victim has thoroughly believed in the illusionist's creations, they are lost in "the illusionist's world" and are forced to deal with the illusions as if they were real. Fran is also very agile, strong for his size, has good physical stamina, and is in very good shape, as well has having a ridiculously high pain tolerance - demonstrated by the fact that he runs and jumps ninja-style through tree-branches and seems to withstand his partner Bel throwing knives into his back with little expression beyond saying 'ouch.' Fran also has a Hell Ring which opens a box weapon, a type of animal that would attack for him based on his element (Mist), but we don't know what it is since he was too busy trying to think of sentai poses to use it.
Weapons: Fran would arrive in Salkia Island with his Ring and Box Weapon. I can easily see him having a dagger or some other small knife on his person, but there's no canon support for that.
Writing samples:
Personal LJ Sample:
[video feed flickers on, and a very apathetic looking face peers into the screen of the LP at a diagonal type angle, tongue flicking out to lick his lips]
Well, now, isn't this an interesting little gadget?
Not as advanced as my old communicator, but more features...hmmm.
I'm in a jungle now, this isn't like Italy at all. Strange. The last thing I remember is falling out of bed. Whoever's doing this illusion, it's not cute, you know. Even if it doesn't feel like an illusion...ah.
[the video feed hiccups for a moment, a flash of the sand, and then the face in the screen is more upright]
Boss? Commander Squalo? Bel-senpai? If this is a joke, it's really not funny.
Third-Person Sample:
He'd done all the reality tests the minute he woke up in this weird place, face first in the sand. Mind you, the rest of the Varia would have to never find out about that, because if any of them heard, he would never ever in a thousand years hear the end of it. No.
Bad enough having the stupid hat on his head, if they saw that, he would be an outcast forever. Nevermind that the stupid hat had cushioned his fall a little bit, and possibly maybe prevented a concussion - anything positive about the hat was relegated to useless info. Nothing of consequence.
Either way, that wasn't a big deal now that he looked around himself and found himself in the jungle, of all places. Last time he checked, there weren't any jungles in Italy in the area he remembered being last. Come to think of it, there weren't any jungles in Italy at all, urban jungles not being counted as actual jungles. This was an actual jungle, though, not an urban jungle. Not a single espresso shop as far as he could see. Sighing to himself, he rubbed at his forehead - this place was very hot indeed - and glanced again at the key attached to the little pod thingy he had, a bit of electronics it would be fun to look over later.
After he figured out what this place was and whether it was as real as it felt or just some sort of particularly clever illusion thought up by that Mukuro or something. As if that could catch him.
Muttering under his breath to himself, a jumble of sentences ranging through everything from cursing the lack of coffee out here to wondering aloud where Bel-senpai was, Fran dusted the sand off his stupid hat and his heinie, and started in the direction the little pod thingy said his "lodging" was.
"Lodging" didn't sound promising at all. He wouldn't dare hope for a five-star hotel.