✗ ooc :: c o n t a c t . c r i t
I am the... newbiest newb that ever newb'd with this fandom, and any suggestion, crit, smack-over-the-head you might have to pass down about how I handle Hibari would really, really help me. Please? ;;
This is also if you have any questions, or if you'd like to talk, or... anything, really! Please let me know if you'd like me to screen your comments, or if you're not comfortable with my answering them.
Thank you!
[character history / background]: liiiiiiiiink
[character abilities]: enjoy the cute drunk hedgehog ._.
[character personality]: after 311 manga chapters, it’s safe to say you’d have to wrestle genuine introspection out of Hibari Kyouya's cold, dead fingers. If there was any actual character depth in him, it was probably quickly shamed out of coexisting with the manga, about the time most of its protagonists embraced their inner Power Rangers. It's no use interrogating him from a philosophical perspective: there are just things in life that Hibari Kyouya doesn’t do, and 99% of the time, facial expressions are one of them.
In sum and part, Hibari Kyouya is the bona fide, petty bully with a strong whimsical streak: he doesn't get involved in anything that isn’t his business. The problem being, starting a fight around him, looking at him the wrong way, or plain breathing has a good chance of turning your business into his business. Best way to get his attention? Touch his territory school, Namimori, for whom he’s developed a supremely unhealthy obsession.
He’s not just the Disciplinary Committee head, lording with an iron fist over, well, middle school children. He's the self-assigned guardian of the place, and he takes upon himself the sacred duty of exacting (financial or physical) retribution upon anyone who breaks its frequently ad lib’d rules. On some level, this serves as an advantage to the people around him, because he also protects the flock, insofar as it’s associated with his gd school. Yes, Hibari’s heart is pure and just and true to Namimori (All Bow before it, All Hail), whose obnoxiously campy anthem he keeps as his cell phone ring tone. Later, his pet bird, Hibird learns the same song and shamelessly performs it to everyone’s stupor, cementing the belief that where Hibari goes, drama whoring follows.
While his allegiance to a gigantic and slightly decrepit inanimate object goes unquestioned, Hibari’s loyalty as a Vongola leaves a little to be desired. He doesn’t identify as the Cloud Guardian, or even as much of a mafioso. The tradition for those bearing his ring is to walk their own path, to supervise as outsiders, and to involve themselves only as much and as far as their personal sense of justice agrees with that of their alleged allies; in Hibari’s case, this translates less like independence, and more like taking every opportunity to distance himself from the Captain Planet Squad, and their PG-13 ways. It’s nonetheless questionable that he can still distance himself from the Vongola world, now that he’s known the adrenaline high and the real danger of being part of it; he likes a good fight, he likes power, he likes blood. Returning to the good ol’ life of beating up dudes who lifted a girl’s skirt without an arsenal of machine guns, goons, explosives or mutant winged parallel versions of themselves at the ready seems… somehow unimpressive. No, if you want Hibari, he’ll be where the blood lies - and the glimpses in the ten-year-leap future arc show that he has the capacity to learn that (and a little bit of temperance with it).
Hibari’s core beliefs are remarkably simple: the strongest will survive. For all that he claims to believe in public morale and rigour, but seems far more the adept of will and self-made dignity. His pride is won with every day he lives, and he is proud, because he refuses to surrender. Because of this, he never forgets his so far single on-screen, monumental defeat: losing to Mukuro Rokudou’s trickery dents his dignity significantly - to such an extent that Reborn persuades him to play by another’s rules and wait his turn in Xanxus’ game like a good boy by simply promising him an opportunity to knock Mukuro’s teeth out at a later date. Likewise, when the Shimon play their hand of trying to take the whole bloody room with the Vongola in it, Hibari deflects all concern over his person to his pride: this not-so-cute-and-kind-of-vicious little fella can survive pretty much anything - can push his body to pretty much any limit - as long as he believes he will not surrender. That doesn’t just make his victories improbable or extraordinary; it also makes them kinda bitchy.
His reliance on will as strength as pride as victory stilts his understanding of the world at large: people are either herbivores, or predators, flocks, or lone warriors. He identifies as the latter - goes through great pains to reassure everyone that oral hygiene is overrated by threatening to ‘bite them to death’ - and doesn’t really get people outside of a power hierarchy. Tsuna confuses him (always nice in your leader type!), being sometimes weak and sometimes strong; and he likewise doesn’t really see eye to eye with people who won’t fight seriously. Hibari’s cooperation is won with difficulty - his respect, even less often so. Reborn seems to exercise a curious attraction - almost the ability to temper Hibari - because of his innate skill, and Dino sometimes, sometimes gets to sway him. Other than that and his posse, he seems downright claustrophobic, and pretty unwilling to bother himself with random individuals. Hell, he even -_- ‘s at the Ghost of a Christmas Vongola Cloud Guardian Past, of whom he is presumably a reincarnation. With time, he learns to intervene when his allies are in all but mortal peril, to pick them and then kick them off when they get too clingy; sometimes, to apparently inspire them (because everyone wants to be g-g-g-g-gaaaaaangstaaaaaa). As said before, it’s unclear whether he does this because he really cares, because he can’t really bow out of the Vongola game anymore, or because it’s bloody convenient.
For all his thug’s M.O., Hibari’s unexpectedly (and in some ways intuitively) intelligent: he realizes early on that the boxes should be documented in the future, and in a feat of good ol’ trolling, Mukuro cautions him to temper his shows of arrogance, because there is no point in denying the effectiveness of Mukuro’s strategy, which Hibari has already perceived. His intelligence isn’t a compliment: if anything, it sublimates the excuse that poor Hibari, poor baby, he just doesn’t get the consequences of his actions, doesn’t get that his allies sort of, maybe, yeah, really need him, and he doesn’t >get that he is totally about to kill someone, and nothing will be happily ever after. He understands. He understands completely. He understands, and most of the time, he doesn’t give a damn. He’ll walk with you, and he’ll walk out on you all the same.
Lastly: because apparently girls and tiny, cute, fuzzy animals like douchebags, he tends to be the heavily disputed subject of much animal affection: his enemy’s bird defects to join the cause of his hair, his all-fabled power manifests as a gd (drunk) hedgehog, and his ally’s cat enters his quarters at night when he’s in a dubious state of dress, quite possibly to seduce him. For all that he dislikes herding, he seems to look after his own: he’s oddly careful about Hibird’s safety, and even its… dignity, to such an extent that he doesn’t even cage it. On the one hand, that bird is probably on crack and recognizes Hibari as its One True Provider; his hair is its ideal mating ground - neither earthquake, nor primordial evil, nor the #27262910729017th Don bent on world domination could make it stray. On the other hand, it’s peculiar of a character OCDishly possessive enough to mind the shift of rubble in his school (All Bow before Namimori, etc etc) to not want to domineer over his pet. In some sense, Hibari appreciates free will, no matter the direction in which that takes peoplets to and from him.
To conclude all the tl;dr over a character who still has basically less personality than his pet bird: a beautiful musical performance.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: mid-Shimon arc, battoru engagement with Adelheid Suzuki.
[journal post]:
video post;
[ Close-up of fingers curling, light beating on a... ring, then quite a lot of shaking as the device is picked up, settled quickly to keep its owner in shadows and to catch the sun instead. ]
- nd this is confiscated.
[ camera: OFF, then ON again, to show a 50-second footage of Xanadu. ]
The kept herbivores will earn themselves a belly to bite through.
[ camera is shut down again, then refocused on a rock by the Xanadu lake… and a little, cute yellow birdie perched lazily on top of it. It seems to like the video attention and starts singing a sharp trill - ]
~ The green that trails Naaaaaaaaamimoooooooori, not laaaaaarge not smaaaaaaaaall, Naaaaaaaaami iiiiiis beeeeeeeest ~ ♫ ~
[ The little bird puffs a little, then collapses by for its afternoon nap; harsh laughter behind the camera.]
...hah. You’re tired. No comment.
[VIDEO -> TEXT ]
According to school regulations, you now know who and where your prefect is.
Find me before I find you.
[third person / log sample]:
In the real mafia, and not in Sawada Tsunayoshi’s playground, men earn labels.
You’re a hero, if you die by 20, weak, if you do it by 30, worn and strong, if you fall a Don. Crude and careless if you’re bitten by knives, betrayed and shamed if you go down with a gunshot. You’re wise if you retire, ruthless if you rule by law, consigliere, if you estrange weapons.
You’re something and someone, written in blood, your own and that of your rivals.
Movies told him so.
There is nothing this concrete among yakuza, where tattoos brand allegiance with Western habits: cheap cigarettes, plastic sunglasses, heavy whispers in the dark. A breed of sullen, dumb creatures that Namimori will never know, its seed eradicated early. (Hibari swears himself innocent of that tradition of erasure. His knuckles and grasp and the tight caps of his knees can account for themselves. )
Here, now, Suzuki Adelheid can choke on her gloating and do the same, to despair from Sawada. From Sawada’s men - Sawada’s army of spoiled children.
He wants to salute them in spite, Open your eyes and stare. Try to find the corpse.
It won’t be Hibari, though they think otherwise. They can’t afford not to. Probability, reality, common sense vouch for his death. He gives them a benefit of doubt.
Sawada’s... herd is a beast of its own, and its nature constrained by delusions of civility. Caring. Predators playing at sentimentality, filing their teeth on iron born of blood, biding their time until they turn against their own. Grinding down, with licks of Sawada’s hands and bites where rings don’t bind his fingers.
Gokudera Hayato, sworn to delusions of a grandeur that becomes neither the Vongola, nor their errant heir of choice; Yamamoto Takeshi, sworn to a friendship that only withstands the thin reality of warfare as a 'game'; Sasagawa Ryouhei, sworn to avenge his once fallen teeth by spiting the world and his own odds of merry survival; Lambo, the little whimpering thing, sworn to redeem them all; Chrome Dokuro - no, that filthy wretch, the chained wraith, Mukuro, sworn to his ambitions (and his frail neck sworn to sakura blisters and tearing under Hibari’s hands); and Reborn, the childlike dream of wrath and gore and something strong - Reborn, who is simply sworn.
All of them cunning, all of them waiting, biding their time and earning their breaths, gaining loose footing.
All of them, minus the one, watching him ready, expectant of failure, with Suzuki Adelheid a strange, crowned slip of nothing in the eastward range of his vision. Her withering army lies under his chain, and he pulls, distantly, when he remembers it. If. The cut is clean, the sound smooth, the air spiced with stupor.
Silence.
A bare sky, his own element denied - no, the clouds weren’t exiled. They fled of their own choice. Namimori should be beautiful today, he supposes, cement and pebbles, rock hard in welcome. Hibari’s no stray, Namimori’s not a No-Man’s-Land. He’ll return to it.
Behind him, ice figurines collapse by the one - ten - fifty - hundreds.
And Sawada, he knows, is counting.
The satisfaction of teaching spreads like a mould on his tongue, corrupts his objectivity. The anger that welled in him months prior has been culled slowly. No need to bite Suzuki Adelheid to death; no impetus. His resolve has moved from eliminating one opponent from his school’s premise to the irrational need of crushing every inkling of their faith that they will ever subdue him.
He will not surrender. Therefore, he will survive. Therefore, he is proud. Therefore, they will die. Therefore, Suzuki Adelheid will perish. Therefore, therefore, therefore, therefore. From overwhelming fury to mathematic precision. A lesser man might unravel with the loss of his method, but here, now, Hibari can’t care. One way of thinking for another, pick and choose, trade and discard.
...besides. Besides, I’ll tear her into bloodied pieces.
Never disappoint prey. Always put it down.
Red infests the sleeves of his coat, crawls unto his chain, sinks its fangs into Alaude’s heritage. Something - someone told him the weapons shift and merge, come together. Upgrade. Power up. Go well past 9000, like the poorly pixelated superheroes with intensely deranged hair featured on trading cards.
The tale master, like the words he wove, doesn’t matter. A weapon is a weapon, something in his hand, blunt, heavy, or secure. There is no attachment to it, no predilection, no synchronization, no partisanship. No union, no feeling, no causality between someone else’s loss and Hibari’s gain. Nothing. Later, they tell him, his future self will take every ring to task, will search (and destroy; always, destroy) their weakness, refine them into unique instruments of a subtle kill.
Here, now, his he makes good use of what he’s given. As for his other whim... a nod the way of Suzuki Adelheid’s Committee band. The prefect is confiscating this life.
His title, if not his label. Hero. Weak. Worn-strong. Crude and careless. Betrayed and shamed. Wise. Ruthless. Consigliere -
Hibird’s wings cover his eyes, in quick defence of them against a sudden blight of sunlight. It nuzzles against his cheek.
- this isn’t a movie. He’ll take 'prefect.' He’ll take survivor.
List of information to be passed down to Reborn, should one emerge, for a modest fee of one blackmail'd battoru:
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