CHARACTER
» Name: Joker
» Fandom: Kuroshitsuji
» Reference: http://kuroshitsuji.wikia.com/wiki/Joker
» Canon Point: Chapter 34
» Gender: Male
» Age: 25
» Orientation: Uncertain, due to a lack of substantial evidence; likely heterosexual.

While Beast is undoubtedly in love with Joker, she's aware that it's unrequited; there isn't really any solid evidence that he cares for her as anything but a sister. He teases her a little, saying that he understands why Sebastian would want to touch her "pretty leg" and gives it a little touch himself, but this is also while he's keeping up his playful facade in front of a stranger, so it's unlikely that he really means anything by it and it might not be real proof of physical attraction.

His relationship with Baron Kelvin is... kind of questionable, and it's possible that there was a history of molestation (not particularly likely; the possibility is based only on Kelvin's apparent pedophilia and Joker's behavior with him, but given the series' track record, I wouldn't exactly rule it out either). Anything that might have happened there would have been dubcon at best, though, which doesn't really say anything about his innate orientation either.

If anything, I'd guess he's leaning toward heterosexual, since there's at least the possibility that he wasn't just joking with Beast, while on the other hand, there's nothing to indicate he finds anything appealing about men.


» Personality:

Son of the prostitute Karen Taylor. No entries on his real name.

This is how his identity is unceremoniously summarized by the reaper who claims his soul upon his death. And in a sense, it sadly sums him up reasonably well -- the deserted unnamed son who never had a chance, who's always lived as a ghost, either as unnoticed trash in an alley or behind a mask and a stage name.

"Joker" lives up to that name most of the time, putting on a sunny, playful facade that even stays with him when he leaves the circus ring. Though not nearly as boisterous or playful as his ringleader persona, in some ways, the mask isn't too far off from his real self, either. At his core, he's a warm and caring person, one who empathizes with other hard-luck children and acts as a big brother to them all. He's always had a way of making people feel special -- giving Doll her name, cheering up Dagger and getting him out playing with the other kids -- a trait that's only emphasized in his circus act, not unique to it.

But for all the light he gives off to others, his own light has grown rather dim. Being the oldest of all the children from the gutter, Joker has had much greater responsibility than the rest -- not only to his siblings, but to the man who took them all in and gave them a life. It's always been his duty more than anyone else's to assist the man they all call Father, and it's a duty that's gotten to be downright crushing as that man has descended into madness. They've all had to kidnap children to deliver to Kelvin, to hurt and kill people in the process, but Joker is the only one who stays by Father's side after they're delivered, the one who knows just how far his obsession with Ciel goes, the one who gets letters from him and takes care of him and serves him.

It's an immensely disturbing relationship, one in which Joker is clearly the victim of emotional abuse. Where the others in the circus are primarily concerned with one another -- Beast even suggests quitting and cutting off everything with Kelvin -- Joker is devoted to Kelvin above all else, even his beloved siblings, and doesn't see leaving him as even a possibility. The one who sees the absolute worst of the man is the one who will never dream of deserting him; Kelvin's obviously seen to that. He's kept Joker at his side with lies about protecting his siblings who are still at the workhouse out over the hills (who in fact were killed years ago and whose bones made up the secret material in the prosthetics the circus members wear now) and with guilt. Joker owes him everything for bringing them all out of the gutter and into this world that seemed like a dream, and so he has to be the perfect son, has to; the mere threat that not carrying out an order would make him a bad son is enough to get him to do horrific things -- participating in the gruesome deaths of kidnapped children for Kelvin's entertainment, something Joker can't stand; he shudders at the sounds of those breaking bones and it hurts to keep on his showman's smile, but he still goes along with it.

And there's some real bitterness in him, too. He's not above vengeance; he relishes the idea of the other circus members killing off Ciel's household in exchange for killing Kelvin and himself. And he hates the circumstances of his life, hates his country for being the kind of place that can leave starving children in the gutter with the refuse, with no choice but to turn to a man like Kelvin if they just want to live. But at his heart, he isn't an angry person, and the bitterness he feels tends to turn more into helplessness and depression than rage in the end.


» Appearance: Joker seems tall compared to the other members of the circus, save for Jumbo, but is a little smaller than average in actuality, particularly evident when standing next to someone as tall as Sebastian -- given that none of them had anything close to proper nutrition growing up, it's hardly a surprise that they're all a little lanky and underdeveloped. He has a somewhat long face with narrow violet-blue eyes and thin brows, and probably would have grown up to be an impressive looking man if he'd gotten all the necessities. He has bright ginger hair dyed blond at the ends; his long bangs are pulled back and held in place in a sort of spiky style with criss-crossed bobby pins, and the length of his hair is kept tied back in a bunch of small braids.

He tends to maintain his cheerful circus style at all times; he's almost always wearing thick eyeliner with a blue teardrop painted on his cheek beneath his left eye, and his clothes follow suit, consisting of high-contrasting diamond patterns and rich primary colors. What stands out is his right hand -- he was born without one; what he wears in its place is a specially made prosthetic that moves almost just like a real hand, but that looks like that of a skeleton.


» Suitability: n/a


SAMPLES

» "amatomnes" Entry:

/|
hello///


[The video feed is then turned on entirely by accident, by someone who clearly doesn't know the slightest thing about this sort of technology. He's staring very intensely at the keypad without making a sound, a sullen expression on his face. After a few long moments of this, he turns it over in his hands curiously, murmuring to himself.]

What're ye s'posed to do when the button's got two things on it, I wonder?

[As he glances up and out the doorway, he catches sight of someone passing down through the hall.

He quickly scrambles to his feet to chase after her, putting on an infinitely happier face than what he was unwittingly showing a minute ago. He leaves the communicator recording from its seat on the floor, and his voice gets quieter as he gets further from the microphone.]

Oh-- Oi, miss, ye mind tellin' a bloke what it is he gone an' got 'imself into?

I found it, yeah.

--Talk into it? It don't need no wires or nothin', then? .... Ah, thank ye kindly, I'll be tryin' 'at.

[There's the sound of approaching footsteps and then he comes back into view, sitting down cross legged on the floor and picking up the communicator once more, giving it another very hard look]

Red button, red... 'ere we go.

[Putting a big smile back on, he takes a big breath, ready to greet the network.]

CA--

[And promptly disconnects instead.]


» "amatomneslogs" Entry:

It still threw him for a loop sometimes, waking up on a soft bed in a decent building. And that moment of disorientation always just served to remind him that he wasn't as far from that filthy alley in the East End as he could sometimes pretend. No, it wasn't fair to pretend; until all his brothers and sisters had come down from the workhouse over the hill to join the rest of them in the simple utopia that Father had given them, he wouldn't be free of it either.

So the initial confusion he felt at waking up comfortable and warm -- so comfortable and so warm and free from all the tension and concerns that usually ate at him, and the combination of it all was just different enough from anything he'd felt before that he couldn't quite put his finger on it -- it wasn't so new, not so worrying. Not at first. But when his narrow eyes had blinked fully open, when he had taken in the unfamiliar ceiling and the windows and the drapery and everything about the place that was so high class while being so simple -- this wasn't his tent, for sure, nor was it Baron Kelvin's mansion.

And the thought of the latter sent a sudden shiver down his spine, stirred a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, before his hazy thoughts could even settle into something coherent. And when they finally had -- when he had not only comprehended that he was in a strange place, naked and collared (like one of Beast's animals, but maybe it wasn't so unfitting, because he always had been the lapdog when it came to Father), but when he recalled what he could from what had happened before this--

The long fingers of the skeletal prosthetic that was his right hand clenched, grasping hard at the sheets; and he turned his head away from it, gritting his teeth in a cold sweat, not wanting to look at it, not after what the doctor he'd so trusted had said, said about what those porcelain-like bones had been made from --

And yet here he was, all in one piece, not cut apart and bleeding out on that basement floor. So maybe it had just been a dream, all of it, a wicked, terrible dream -- or maybe he'd blacked out and this was the dream, or maybe-- But the warm sea breeze through the window seemed far too nice for this to be Hell.

And so he must not have died, not yet. Because if he had, he knew there was only one place he deserved to be when all was said and done. Heaven was for good sons and innocents.