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| NAME. | Noah Robin Campbell |
| NICKNAME. | Robin |
| AGE. | 17 (approx) |
| BIRTHDAY. | December 11 |
| OCCUPATION. | Student/Part-time worker at the Confectionary |
| ORIENTATION. | Whatever. |
| DATING STATUS. | Single |
| HEIGHT. | 5'9" |
| BUILD. | Lean and muscular |
| HAIR. | Red |
| EYES. | Violet |
| PLAYER. | Yuff |
| JOURNAL. | ~randomtology |
| TIME ZONE. | Central Standard Time (GMT-6) |
♠ VISUAL. Reddish hair and violet eyes. 5'8 1/2" with a lean build. He has a red left deformed arm, usually covered by a glove. Ears have multiple piercings.
♠ FASHION. Here's an image gallery to give you an idea.
♠ DEMEANOR. A bratty punk. Acts like he has a chip on his shoulder at all times. Defensive and hostile to people he doesn't know. Defensive and hostile to people he does know. Defensive and hostile.
♠ AURAL. Voice clip. A young and slightly high voice. British accent that sounds traveller accent. You're excused if you have no idea what he's saying. Lots of swearing.
♠ OLFACTORY. Food and teenage rage.
♠ MENTAL INFORMATION. He has anger issues. And issue issues.
♠ MAGICAL INFORMATION. No magic! Holy powers later on, but for now he's just a teenage human ball of rage.
♠ BACKTAGGING. I love backtagging! I have a tendency to let threads go after a month, but let me know if you want to keep it up and I'll be happy to do so.
♠ FOURTHWALLING. Not really applicable since this is AU.
♠ PHYSICAL AFFECTION. He'll accept physical affection from people he knows maybe. People he doesn't is likely to end in violence.
♠ PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. Noah regularly gets himself into fights, so I'm fine with it. If you're unsure, just ask me.
♠ RELATIONSHIPS. HAHAHAHAHA why would you.
On the surface, Noah seems very different. He never went through nervous breakdown that followed Mana's death in canon, so he never adopted that masked personality he wears in much of canon. In other words, he still acts like the angry brat like he was as a child. He swears like a sailor, he gets into fights as easy as he breathes, manners come purely as an afterthought if at all. He has extremely bad socialization skills, thanks to having next to no friends through the years, so he tends to approach every social situation on high defense mode, teetering on hostility. Basically, imagine an angry small dog. There you go, that's Noah.
But underneath all that, he's still very much Allen at the core. He still cares about people, he still feels compelled to help those in front of him. He might be swearing up a storm while he does it, but he's still just as likely to jump in help someone in need. The fights he gets himself into are more to defend people than actual bullying. Being mean to genuinely kind people (which will happen due to his defensiveness) will cause him to feel guilty pretty fast. His capacity for empathy and compassion still runs just as deep. It's just not as obvious.
Another difference is that he never traveled with Cross, so he never learned how to cheat at cards. He's never had to pay off as much debt as he did in canon, so he's never really earned his strong aversion to debts. His aversion to debts is no stronger than an average poor person's. He won't have a tendency to go into flashback mode over Cross either, unless something causes him to earn a memory about Cross, of course.
His dad never passed away, so he doesn't have the extreme angst and grief that comes along with all that. In the AU, his dad is simply "not well" and is staying somewhere outside the city- so Noah will occasionally fret about him and sometimes can be motivated to do something if he feels it would benefit his father in some way. I don't have intentions to bring his dad into the city, but I can be flexible about that depending on what people want to app.
Since his dad has lived much longer, it will cause him to have a more normal and healthy attitude towards his dad. While he deeply loves and admires his father, he doesn't hold him as high up on a pedestal as he does in canon. The twist reveal that his dad had family he never told Noah about has already been revealed - and since his dad is still alive to answer Noah's questions and said family is not actively trying to kill him - it went over somewhat better. At the very least, Noah is more open to the idea of openly expressing his resentment and anger over his dad lying to him, without feeling guilty about betraying his memory.
Finally, without any Akuma to save, Noah is much more directionless about his life. He's never figured out any great passion to follow. He had assumed until recently that he'd follow in his dad's footsteps of being an entertainer, but he's got no passion for it what-so-ever and was more doing it because he felt it was expected. And now even that path is up in the air with the reveal of his dad's family -- so the future for Noah is now just a big question mark. It causes him to have a lot less focus and determination to accomplish goals, making him come off more as a lazy teenager. He won't be spouting off shonen speeches about his path anytime soon. But on the other hand, he'll tend to be less reckless and stubborn like he is in canon. At least until he finds something to be passionate about in Recollé. Then we're back where we started with that.
Noah was born somewhere in the UK to some parents he doesn't remember. He was born with a birth defect that left him without a left arm beyond a stump that ended halfway before the elbow. His birth parents, whoever they were, either couldn't or didn't want to care for a disabled child, so he was abandoned. Whatever their actual intentions were, he was left in the hands of people with connections to child traffickers. Perhaps they intentionally sold him, or perhaps they were conned by people who promised Noah would have a better life. Noah has no idea what the truth is, nor is he inclined to find out.
Thus for the first several years of his life, Noah was a victim to trafficking. As soon as he was able, he was put to work: manual labor, factory work, drug running - he was forced to perform all sorts of tasks while also undergoing abuse, neglect, and dehumanizing treatments. He wasn't seen as a person, but rather a commodity or a tool. He didn't have a real name, just nicknames that his handlers would come up with. Which, he went through a lot of handlers. Partly because his disability limited his usefulness, but the main reason was his attitude. While their treatments were meant to break kids down and make them easier to control, it tended to have an opposite effect on him. He became defensive, hostile, and with a strong inability to trust. He'd routinely act in defiance, and try to think of ways to escape - since surely anything had to be better than this.
His chance for escape came in December when he was around seven years old. There was a police raid on a spot he'd been held in, and he used the chaos as a chance to slip away. Not trusting the police not to be in on it (he'd seen his share of crooked cops), he decided to try to make it on his own, setting off into an unknown city with nothing but the clothes on his back. Fortunately, luck was on his side for once, for by pure chance he was found by a kindly traveling entertainer, one who was patient enough convince the extremely defensive child to let him take him in from the cold.
Having no else to go, he kept staying with the man. The man himself was lonely enough to let the kid stick around, and after some time, finally officially adopted him - giving him the name Noah Robin Campbell.
Noah spent the next years of his life traveling place to place with his adopted dad. They were usually dirt poor, but Noah was happy with this part of his life since it was lightyears better than what he had before. His father taught him all sorts of things that he hadn't gotten to learn before: reading, writing, money, entertainer related crafts - and essentially anything other typical thing he'd need to be self-sufficient as his father deeply valued independence. Because they moved so often for his dad's job, he was often homeschooled and didn't have many friends his own age aside from the occasional playmate. While his time with father did a lot to help him heal and become a more functional person in society, his social skills still were left plenty lacking.
But unbeknownst to Noah, his dad was actually related to the very influential and rich Alessandro family. However, due to a number of factors, he was only really close to his brother (Ari's father). After his brother passed away, his dad took it very hard and decided to head to the UK as a way to ~find himself~, cutting off ties with the rest of the family in the process. Noah never connected the dots or questioned it. Sure, occasionally he asked a question or two- and his father would often give him either a short vague answer, or none at all. It never really occurred to Noah to probe deeper into it. He didn't know his own origins, and he didn't want to think too much on his past- so how could he blame other people for doing the same? So, he left it alone and never found out anything.
When Noah was a teenager, his dad began to suffer from mental health issues. It started small. Occasional bouts of forgetfulness, mood swings, seeing things that weren't there. But over time, it got worse. Noah attempted to take care of him entirely by himself for awhile: taking on the chores, the cooking, and whatever odd jobs he could find to pay the bills. But Noah was only a teenager with limited skills and no money, so there was only much he could handle. Eventually it reached the point that where Noah was forced to swallow his pride and decided to track down his dad's family, to either let them know or ask for help since he was way in over his head. Finding their information was simple enough, he just had to dig through some of his father's files to find a couple old phone numbers that he had kept just in case. So Noah called those numbers, and BOY...was he in for a surprise.
The Alessandro family, not having heard from Noah's dad in years, were less than thrilled to find out he had been traveling around as an entertainer and had adopted some kid they had never heard of before. They initially treated him with incredible levels of suspicion, doing everything they could to take a fine-tooth comb through Noah and his past to determine if he was some sort of con artist. And they made no secret to this to Noah, as he was often met with such attitudes when he spoke to them- if not thinly veiled pleasantries. This caused a great deal of tension and resentment towards his extended family, having gone for them for help and only treated like some sort of criminal.
Eventually however, the family came up with no evidence he was conning them, so they were forced to accept what he was saying as truth. And as much as they didn't want to deal with it, they also knew that throwing a handicapped kid to the wolves would be a media disaster for them, so they decided that while they took care of his dad's medical and psychiatric needs, to send Noah to stay with his cousin Ari while he finished school in Recollé - somewhere nice and far away from possible media attention. Which being forced to be separated from his father and the only person he considered his family to live in an entirely different city? Noah was less than keen on that idea and it only added to his negative opinion of the family, but he compiled since it seemed like the only way to help his father. So he packed what bags he had, and set off for the city of Recollé.
| NAME. | Allen Walker |
| NICKNAME. | Beansprout, Destroyer of Time |
| AGE. | 16 (approx) |
| BIRTHDAY. | December 25 |
| OCCUPATION. | Exorcist (former) |
| ORIENTATION. | Undeclared |
| DATING STATUS. | Ain't got time for that shit. |
| HEIGHT. | 5'8 1/2" |
| BUILD. | Lean, muscular, underweight |
| HAIR. | White |
| EYES. | Violet |
Polite, kind and friendly are usually the attributes that Allen appears like when you first meet him. He seems like a nice boy, one that insists on being gentlemanly and mannerly. Allen's always willing to help a person in need, it doesn't matter if they are friends or a stranger. If he makes a promise to you, he'll go through great lengths to make sure he follows it - even if you are a stranger. On his first mission to Mater, he even went so far to stay three days extra in the ruins just so he could fulfill the promise to a few strangers who got mixed up in their war. He didn't need to stay there, he had accomplished his mission and barely knew those people. But, he simply felt it was right thing to do, and thus he stayed. He is kind and selfless to the core. He couldn't even bring himself to leave the man who "killed" him to die, even at the risk of alienating his friends and traveling companions. Instead, he insisting on helping him because he knew Tyki had friends waiting for him, and he didn't want to add to their grief.
Allen doesn't have some great motive for why he's so compassionate. He has no great plan, and he's not even that idealistic. He almost never speaks about making a better world, or leaving any sort of legacy. Instead, the source of his kindness is much simpler: simple empathy. When he's challenged about his views in Mater, he explains it himself:
I just don't want to see something like this happen, that's all.
Because I am a small man,
my heart is moved by what's in front of my eyes,
Not by what the world needs.
I just can't abandon what's there in front of me."
However Allen's personality is far from being the simple minded nice person The truth of the matter is, much of the time upfront personality Allen wears a mask. When he was a young kid, Allen was an angry foul-mouth brat. Some of this came from his experiences before he met Mana. In the side novel series Reverse, they describe his early childhood. He has no memories of his biological parents, and the first memory he does have is being sold to a circus. From there the novel doesn't gloss over the abuse or neglect he suffered while serving as a glorified slave. He's beaten, neglected, starved - even dehumanized, as they never give him a name but rather simply call him "Red" or "Red Arm"- after his deformed and paralyzed left arm. He learned about cruelty and hardship long before he learned love and beauty, that's bound to have a profound effect on anyone. In Allen's case, it made him defensive and hostile, as well as slow to trust people with his own well-being. Being "adopted" (or rather, ran off with a guy who was mentally unstable enough not to question suddenly having a child companion) by his father started a healing process from the trauma he experience in the circus, but the scars are still there-- even in the current canon time period. There's a reason why he's not really considered idealistic in the way shonens typically are philosophically speaking- with grand dreams of making the world a better place or big picture philosophies. He's seen too many ugly sides of the world at too young an age to really get aboard the "People are inherently good" train.
Though of course while his experiences played a big part of shaping him, not all of that personality was formed by nurture (or lack thereof). Allen by nature is a fighter, scrappy. He doesn't shy away from confrontation, and he's extremely stubborn when he's got his mind set. When he was a child, these aspects of his personality were front and center for the world to see. He complains loudly when Mana says he looks cute in a new coat, because he rather look "cool", he gets snarly when Mana points out his lack of friends. Cross described the young Allen as being impertinent and vile, and it's well deserved.
But then, Mana died. Allen was so devastated by the loss of the one good thing he had in his life, that he went so far as to attempt to resurrect him from the dead, resulting in him being cursed and his Innocence powers activated-- at the cost of destroying Mana as his first Akuma. This series of events were so traumatic, that not only did Allen's hair turn completely white, but he became nearly catatonic for a long time. For well over a month, he was so unresponsive that Cross had to force feed him just to make sure he didn't die. Eventually, he learned to cope by doing everything he could to mimic his father: his manner of speaking, his attitude, his personality. He wore this mask of his father with such dogmatic devotion that it was almost a seamless fit.
Almost a seamless fit.
You see, no matter how hard Allen may try to emulate Mana? He can't change the fact that he's a different person from Mana, or that he's basing his mask on his perception of Mana from his childhood rather than the complete person. For example, Mana was a very calm and easy-going person ... but, much of that tranquility came from the fact he was extremely emotionally detached from the world around him, to an unhealthy degree even. Even his own dog being murdered got the reaction of "oh well, he was an old dog anyway". His own dog.
Allen, on the other hand, is extremely emotionally invested in the world around him. He reacts to everything around him, and often gets himself involved (sometimes even if it'd been better to stay out of it). The reason he ultimately becomes disillusioned with the Order isn't over his own plight or mistreatment because he's a Noah, but of what happens with Kanda and Alma, the latter being a person he never knew and the former being someone he never got along with. So anyone with less emotional investment. Thus, he feels much more for than his father did and thus is compelled to express a much wider range of emotions than his mask would ever allow him to do if he was wearing it perfectly. So, it'll slip, and glimpses of the person he used to be can be seen. The more you get to know him, the more it slips too. Johnny and Lenalee point this out during a trip, when they catch him speaking with casual slang to them rather than polite speech around them.
Mask or no mask, he is a good kid. Yet he also has a lot of shortcomings. He has a temper, one that can be rather violent at times, and he's not the most easy-going person in the world. His relationship with Kanda highlights this the most, as they spend most of their conversations bickering or outright arguing- usually over subjects that are not at all important. It's so common, that most of their fellow comrades don't even react to it. Allen and Kanda fighting is as commonplace as the sun rising int he east. Marie even remarks that the reason Allen and Kanda are always at each other's throats is because they are just so similar to one another, and he's completely right. Both of them come from extremely difficult backgrounds, and almost always choose fight over flight to solve their problems.
Years of being alone has made it a bit difficult for him to work in teams and share the load easily causing him to try to do everything himself, but he is slowly learning. He's yelled at a few times by Lenalee, when he attempts to run off and fight Akuma by himself. He has a tendency to put himself as lower priority than other people, thus letting himself get injured first. He's too used to fighting alone, or feeling like no one has his back. This shows up in spades when he's trying to deal with the 14th and the Apochrys at the same time. His impulse is to run off alone, tell no one, and try to handle it himself. Johnny and Kanda have to essentially hunt him down and handcuff him to get him to stick around- which he responds by essentially sulking, complaining the entire time, and refusing to divulge any information. So okay I guess by slowly learning I mean...glacial speed learning. But at least he's learned how to fight Akuma with other Exorcists there, so yay?
There is a strong streak of delinquency in him as well. He cheats at cards without issue and will often disobey orders on the field. His code of honor is basically just what he feels is honorable at the time. When a trio of Akuma are debating how best to attack him, he takes full advantage of them being distracted and shoots them, claiming "What idiot would wait? If I can shoot, I'll shoot.". He carries the same attitude towards the Order as well. If he disagrees with an order he's given, he'll simply just not do it, consequences be damned. Komui recognizes this streak in Allen so well that instead of issue commands, he'll sometimes just guilt Allen into complying with orders - which is a much more effective tactic. Even the Earl himself remarks on Allen's delinquency. The Earl is someone who strongly lives by the rules he's set out for himself (albeit these rules are twisted and strongly benefit him, but what do you expect out of the main villain), and Allen's complete disregard for rules is something that tends to irritates him a lot. So much that he actually bothered to remember Allen's name even before it became known he was a Noah. It wasn't because Allen was an extremely good Exorcist or someone to be feared, there are a lot more Exorcists more powerful than him, it was purely because he kept trying to "cheat the system" and that was a point of annoyance.
Most of his actions are based on knee-jerk emotional reactions. He almost never plans out what he's doing, he is constantly winging it. Inability to control his emotions could be one of his greatest faults, as that's often what causes him to jump into things that are way out of his league.
Finally, it can be hard for him to have close connections with people. Most people he seems to have a tendency to hold at arm's length without realizing it. It took months before he even said anything about his childhood with Link, a man he spent every day with for months. Most of the people around him don't know his past, beyond almost seemingly prepared statements he might make about it ("I turned my dad into an akuma", "I trained under Cross"), so they are often caught by surprised when they find out something about him. This is probably rooted in the troubles he had in his childhood, or just simply not have many people around him that cared. Rarely will he talk about his own problems, besides the occasional emotional outburst. So overall, expect a kid that will do anything to help save you - but rarely allow you to help save him in return.
LOTS OF BAD SHIT HAPPENS.
