Okay, so, when your entire species is slaughtered down to one dude whose only saving grace is being gifted the power to clone himself into a few more dudes, and you're raised by your quote-unquote grandfather who makes a huge deal about how you should unconditionally hate those responsible, i.e. humans -- you grow up to be kind of bitter. And D is kind of bitter. While his grandfather really heads the Bitter Plant Guys Association with gusto, D is not excused from its rules and regulations: that is, hate all humans, seek vengeance on all humans, kill all humans. Slowly. He believes quite strongly that most of humanity is scum and deserves to be punished, in very one-on-one, intimate ways. Which is to say that even though he presents himself as a pretty amicable, if a little eccentric and definitely uptight fellow, his life has its own background radiation of "I don't like people." He doesn't see anything wrong with people getting what they deserve, even if it's excessive; he'll readily let a "customer" be mauled or completely eaten by one of his "pets" as punishment for some exaggerated-to-nonsense sin like 'cheated' or 'broke in.' To D, all of human sin is proof of the truth of his grandfather's words, on a sliding scale from bad to worse.
Obviously, D is not very nice. People meeting him tend to assume that he's intimidating, enigmatic, very dangerous, or a combination of the three. He is exceedingly frank about how much he doesn't care for humans or prefers animals over them, saying things like, "The people don't matter." His actions towards humans are invasive and rude at best, and at worst he is ruthless and cruel; raised to show no mercy, he is very good at playing the cold overseer who passes judgment (and often not to a positive ending for the accused). When some teenagers break into his shop to steal some incense he has that they believe to be hard drugs, he locks them in a room with hungry beasts and smiles to himself as he walks away. Retribution is the name of the game, and he is more than happy to be judge, jury, and executioner. It's how he's lived ever since being told as a child that the human "kingdom" is just like the animal kingdom, and that humans must fight their own battles in which only the strong survive. As far as D is concerned, humanity is a parasite that destroys all other species, and so while mankind may be animals - they are kind of the lowest of the low.
Not, of course, to imply that he spends all of his time being an aloof, enigmatic, might-be-a-jerk-might-not type. A lot of his time, sure. But unlike his especially angry and vengeful family members, D himself is more -- polite, certainly. He is very polite. On bad days he is downright fussy and dithering, very far from the enigma front he puts up. While his family does have a "mission," D is a prime example of nature vs. nurture, and his experiences and the people he's met have definitely loosened his hate-stranglehold on humanity as a whole. Alongside that, D is much more independent because he simply is not as invested as his father and grandfather are in their vengeance. His grandfather is much more vigilant and his father is disturbed, but D is young and, judging by his constant margin reminders that his grandfather is the shopkeeper and he's just minding the pet shop, inexperienced. With the vengeance. He is greener (ha ha plant jokes) and much more easily influenced by his surroundings, as a result. It also just so happens that he is incredibly weak to creature comforts, and would choose a night in with a good pastry and some tea immediately over a slow-burning life of vengeance. He believes fully that humanity deserves to pay for the carelessness with which man treats other creatures, but in the meantime he's content to take some time off.
As far as people go, the people who manage to become close to D reveal that he is really, really neurotic. He can't help himself before cleaning someone else's apartment without being asked, out of spite or neuroses or both, and nearly has a panic attack when he breaks a nail. The man is not well-suited to constant social interaction and dearly loves his alone time. The result of this, as he of course rarely is not interrupted, is that he has a quick temper and isn't against starting a screaming match if he really wants to. Around people he's not so close to he's more reserved, with a touch-and-go politeness that suggests he's not really interested in small talk and pleasantries but he's willing to perform them anyway. People interest him, on a large, all-of-humanity scale, but on an individual level it's hard to get into his inner circle. Not that he'll make that obvious; he's got nothing else to do but observe, and so he is very good at reading people and also remembering them, even if he's not expressly intrigued. When he is close to someone, genuinely and truly, he gets incredibly attached. Like, we're talking to the point where he'll make no pretenses about moving them into his house and all but begging them to "stay forever." He's possessive to a fault, and he likes to keep things that are his where he can reach them if he wants to.
This, obviously, is rather weird. D is not very good at social interaction beyond the surface level. Being the youngest living member of a species of three people, estranged from his father and raised by his emotionally cold grandfather, D has not really had a lot of experience with people who were not, uh, actually animals. Animals are so much easier than humans. While he's good at reading people, it's more of a surface judgment kind of thing - he can guess what someone wants or what their problems are, but to really deeply understand them as an individual and not a set of Human Tropes on his humanity checklist, he needs a lot more practice. He's claimed things like 'I don't understand love between people,' but it's just as likely that he does and simply doesn't want to own up to it, because then he might have to, like, stop being an aloof mysterious bastard. The problem that occasionally arises is that he doesn't care... about this problem... and makes no real effort to improve his weirdo behavior, because he's not looking for anyone's approval. He's too confident and too ha-ha-humans-suck-xoxo to seek approval.
As D is very confident, it makes him incredibly charismatic and charming, and also reckless. He jumped out of a plane and nearly cut his own hand off to save a cheetah once. One time he almost let himself get eaten (just a little) because he wanted to capture the would-be predator. He attacked and wounded a police officer to the point of leaving gashes on his chest with his bare hands, another time, because he wanted a particular box back in his possession. D's supernatural abilities and, well, superiority complex give him (he thinks) license to do these dangerous things without fear. It helps that he is very clever. And that his wounds heal magically. But he still does it.
Basically, D is this guy who was raised to be a 24/7 hate machine, but once he's left to his own devices he squeals about tea and cakes and sometimes trips over how to have an emotional connection. To his credit, he's very suave about it.
Abilities/Powers: Obviously, D is not human. His species, while never named and only vaguely defined, hosts a number of special abilities:
✤ Communicating with animals: What it says on the tin. ✤ Seeing the "true form" of things: The most notable example of this is seeing animals as, depending on the situation, literal animals or these sort of otherworldly, maybe kind of demonic-looking humanoids. He's also capable of seeing through any supernatural masking ability that changes someone's appearance, or sensing when a non-human is masquerading as one. This comes with an "awareness" of life and nature as mentally tangible concepts... as in, he is married to Nature on the astral plane. ✤ Summoning animals via BLOOD SACRIFICE: Also what it says on the tin. His blood. ✤ Healing: He heals very quickly. A bullet wound to the shoulder heals in a matter of hours, for example. Smaller (insignificant) wounds don't heal as quickly for some reason. ✤ With considerable effort he can erase a memory from someone, somehow. ✤ He has a tentative influence over dreams/illusions/what-is-real. Notable examples include pets that cause vividly realistic dreams in their owners, time traveling in a dream??? and accidentally getting someone else caught in it?? -- and this other time he literally peeled a tattoo of a scorpion off someone and it came to life, and the kid had no memory of it. This. Probably won't come up. The tattoo one. ✤ Fakey fake immortality/You Are A Plant: Like the rest of his family, D is not immortal, but he does not physically age, and it's implied that unless he's killed or ends his own life, he will simply continue to live. If he does die, he... turns into plants... and normally a "new D" would be born from said plants, but obviously game mechanics prevent that.
The red ✤ are abilities I am more than happy to nix entirely because they're unwieldy and poorly explained in canon.
count d | petshop of horrors | reserved 2/3
Obviously, D is not very nice. People meeting him tend to assume that he's intimidating, enigmatic, very dangerous, or a combination of the three. He is exceedingly frank about how much he doesn't care for humans or prefers animals over them, saying things like, "The people don't matter." His actions towards humans are invasive and rude at best, and at worst he is ruthless and cruel; raised to show no mercy, he is very good at playing the cold overseer who passes judgment (and often not to a positive ending for the accused). When some teenagers break into his shop to steal some incense he has that they believe to be hard drugs, he locks them in a room with hungry beasts and smiles to himself as he walks away. Retribution is the name of the game, and he is more than happy to be judge, jury, and executioner. It's how he's lived ever since being told as a child that the human "kingdom" is just like the animal kingdom, and that humans must fight their own battles in which only the strong survive. As far as D is concerned, humanity is a parasite that destroys all other species, and so while mankind may be animals - they are kind of the lowest of the low.
Not, of course, to imply that he spends all of his time being an aloof, enigmatic, might-be-a-jerk-might-not type. A lot of his time, sure. But unlike his especially angry and vengeful family members, D himself is more -- polite, certainly. He is very polite. On bad days he is downright fussy and dithering, very far from the enigma front he puts up. While his family does have a "mission," D is a prime example of nature vs. nurture, and his experiences and the people he's met have definitely loosened his hate-stranglehold on humanity as a whole. Alongside that, D is much more independent because he simply is not as invested as his father and grandfather are in their vengeance. His grandfather is much more vigilant and his father is disturbed, but D is young and, judging by his constant margin reminders that his grandfather is the shopkeeper and he's just minding the pet shop, inexperienced. With the vengeance. He is greener (ha ha plant jokes) and much more easily influenced by his surroundings, as a result. It also just so happens that he is incredibly weak to creature comforts, and would choose a night in with a good pastry and some tea immediately over a slow-burning life of vengeance. He believes fully that humanity deserves to pay for the carelessness with which man treats other creatures, but in the meantime he's content to take some time off.
As far as people go, the people who manage to become close to D reveal that he is really, really neurotic. He can't help himself before cleaning someone else's apartment without being asked, out of spite or neuroses or both, and nearly has a panic attack when he breaks a nail. The man is not well-suited to constant social interaction and dearly loves his alone time. The result of this, as he of course rarely is not interrupted, is that he has a quick temper and isn't against starting a screaming match if he really wants to. Around people he's not so close to he's more reserved, with a touch-and-go politeness that suggests he's not really interested in small talk and pleasantries but he's willing to perform them anyway. People interest him, on a large, all-of-humanity scale, but on an individual level it's hard to get into his inner circle. Not that he'll make that obvious; he's got nothing else to do but observe, and so he is very good at reading people and also remembering them, even if he's not expressly intrigued. When he is close to someone, genuinely and truly, he gets incredibly attached. Like, we're talking to the point where he'll make no pretenses about moving them into his house and all but begging them to "stay forever." He's possessive to a fault, and he likes to keep things that are his where he can reach them if he wants to.
This, obviously, is rather weird. D is not very good at social interaction beyond the surface level. Being the youngest living member of a species of three people, estranged from his father and raised by his emotionally cold grandfather, D has not really had a lot of experience with people who were not, uh, actually animals. Animals are so much easier than humans. While he's good at reading people, it's more of a surface judgment kind of thing - he can guess what someone wants or what their problems are, but to really deeply understand them as an individual and not a set of Human Tropes on his humanity checklist, he needs a lot more practice. He's claimed things like 'I don't understand love between people,' but it's just as likely that he does and simply doesn't want to own up to it, because then he might have to, like, stop being an aloof mysterious bastard. The problem that occasionally arises is that he doesn't care... about this problem... and makes no real effort to improve his weirdo behavior, because he's not looking for anyone's approval. He's too confident and too ha-ha-humans-suck-xoxo to seek approval.
As D is very confident, it makes him incredibly charismatic and charming, and also reckless. He jumped out of a plane and nearly cut his own hand off to save a cheetah once. One time he almost let himself get eaten (just a little) because he wanted to capture the would-be predator. He attacked and wounded a police officer to the point of leaving gashes on his chest with his bare hands, another time, because he wanted a particular box back in his possession. D's supernatural abilities and, well, superiority complex give him (he thinks) license to do these dangerous things without fear. It helps that he is very clever. And that his wounds heal magically. But he still does it.
Basically, D is this guy who was raised to be a 24/7 hate machine, but once he's left to his own devices he squeals about tea and cakes and sometimes trips over how to have an emotional connection. To his credit, he's very suave about it.
Abilities/Powers: Obviously, D is not human. His species, while never named and only vaguely defined, hosts a number of special abilities:
✤ Seeing the "true form" of things: The most notable example of this is seeing animals as, depending on the situation, literal animals or these sort of otherworldly, maybe kind of demonic-looking humanoids. He's also capable of seeing through any supernatural masking ability that changes someone's appearance, or sensing when a non-human is masquerading as one. This comes with an "awareness" of life and nature as mentally tangible concepts... as in, he is married to Nature on the astral plane.
✤ Summoning animals via BLOOD SACRIFICE: Also what it says on the tin. His blood.
✤ Healing: He heals very quickly. A bullet wound to the shoulder heals in a matter of hours, for example. Smaller (insignificant) wounds don't heal as quickly for some reason.
✤ With considerable effort he can erase a memory from someone, somehow.
✤ He has a tentative influence over dreams/illusions/what-is-real. Notable examples include pets that cause vividly realistic dreams in their owners, time traveling in a dream??? and accidentally getting someone else caught in it?? -- and this other time he literally peeled a tattoo of a scorpion off someone and it came to life, and the kid had no memory of it. This. Probably won't come up. The tattoo one.
✤ Fakey fake immortality/You Are A Plant: Like the rest of his family, D is not immortal, but he does not physically age, and it's implied that unless he's killed or ends his own life, he will simply continue to live. If he does die, he... turns into plants... and normally a "new D" would be born from said plants, but obviously game mechanics prevent that.
The red ✤ are abilities I am more than happy to nix entirely because they're unwieldy and poorly explained in canon.