Let the hunt begin! (Hunter x Hunter) F4A (MxF)

[KnightmareTerror]

I'm more than a decade late to this party, but I got into Hunter x Hunter a bit ago and have just finished the 2011 anime after several weeks of binge-watching.  (Alluka is a precious little bean and must be protected at all costs.)  I'll admit, I wasn't thrilled with it at first, I found it very slow to start, but once things picked up, hoo boy, was I hooked.

I didn't expect this going in, but I quickly became very attached to a character I didn't expect to like because of how straight-up weird I thought he looked at the time, and the vibe he gave off.  He grew on me insanely fast, and he stopped looking weird and started looking smoking hot.  Those smooth, seductive tones and that smug smirk didn't hurt either.

At this point, it's undeniable.  I am down bad for Hisoka.  Down horrendous, actually.  I literally rewound parts that he's in just to hear him speak again.

Yep.  Down horrendous.  I admit it with no shame, I simp for Mister Morow.  (And a little bit salty that he didn't appear in the end montage of the last episode.  The fuck, man.)

And so, that brings me here.  I'm looking for someone to be my Grim Reaper.  I know it's a long shot, because yes, this is an OC x Canon request, and I know a lot of people are a bit leery about that, for good reason.  Too many Mary Sues out there.  I'm wary of them too, so I get it.  I'll be putting a short bio for my character down at the end of this post for that reason, so people who think they might be interested can decide for themselves if she's up to their standard.  (The bio's pretty rough and doesn't cover everything, but it should give a decent idea, at any rate.)

As I'm requesting a canon character for my OC, I will, of course, offer the same to any potential partner.  I'll play a canon character of your choice for your OC as well; HOWEVER, if your choice is Gon, Killua, or Kurapika, they will be aged up to at least sixteen in order to comply with forum rules.  They can be aged up further if that's your preference, but sixteen is the minimum age.  I'm also only looking to do MxF pairings at this time.

Ideally, I'd enjoy playing out the events of the show (making adjustments as needed/as we like; putting our own spin on it, as you do), plus some storylines of our own, because sticking rigidly to a pre-established story doesn't require any creativity, and that's not fun.  I'm open to other ideas, though.

As implied by the above, I'm not looking for a oneshot or anything short-term.  Long-term only, please.

You can find more information on what I look for in a partner, as well as my ons and offs, here.  Regarding the bit about post length that you'll find therein, I'm not necessarily after super long posts for this one; the über long ones can be saved for character introductions or other rare places they might be needed.  I'd still want a minimum of six paragraphs, however.
I do believe that's just about everything, so I'll wrap this up with the rough bio I mentioned earlier.  Please do keep in mind that it's far from complete, and subject to change.


Name: Taliya Jaeger
Age: 26
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 125 lbs

Hair: Azure blue (HEX #069AF3, since apparently Google can't decide what shade azure actually refers to); worn in a style resembling a hime cut with a high ponytail (think Kanda Yuu in D. Gray-Man)
Eye colour: Pale grey
Distinguishing features: Fox-style eyeliner; small scar through left eyebrow's outer edge; slightly off-center lip piercing (also left side); climbing ivy tattoo sleeve (right arm) from wrist to shoulder, accented with deadly nightshade and ending in a large yellow and orange gladiolus flower on the shoulder

Occupation: Bounty hunter
Nen type: Conjurer
Nen abilities:

Knives Out: Creates two knives of the specified type and sheaths on her belt (six if throwing knives are specified); if unspecified, Knives Out grants Taliya a matching pair of knives chosen at random from the types she has conjured before.  Throwing knives cannot be obtained without specification.  Nen can be used to grant additional effects to knives created using this ability, though said effects are, at this stage, fairly limited.
Additional effects:
Envenom: Poison; fast-acting but non-lethal
Corrosion: Acidic; causes damage similar to a chemical burn.  Non-lethal

Lockpick creation: Self-explanatory.  Creates tools for picking locks.



Taliya grew up in a church-run orphanage several miles outside of Doli City in the Republic of Rakario, where she was abandoned not long after her birth.  The identities of her parents are unknown.

Though the children in the orphanage were well provided for, the nuns and priests were not kind and the children were often mistreated.  As a result, many of them were also cruel to each other, modeling their behaviour on that of the only adults they knew, and from a young age Taliya avoided spending much time with her peers, save for a single boy five years her senior who took her under his wing and acted as a surrogate brother.

Much of what she knew of the world outside the orphanage, Taliya learned from her brother figure.  The boy, named Jacque, had lost his parents around the age of seven, and had spent a handful of years before their deaths attending a secular school that didn't limit what its students were taught to church-approved curriculum.  It was from Jacque that Taliya first learned of the existence of hunters, and what it meant to be one.

Jacque spoke often over the years of his desire to become a hunter himself.  Both of his parents had been hunters in their youth, and he often regaled Taliya with tales they had told him of their exploits.  He would always end these stories by saying that one day, he would become a hunter just like his parents and leave the orphanage forever, along with a promise to take her with him when the time came.

It was a promise he didn't keep.  When Taliya was ten years old, Jacque ran away in the night without so much as a word about his plans.  Despite his vow, he had left her behind; the one person in whom Taliya had ever placed her faith had broken his oath to her with no explanation or apology.  The betrayal was devastating, and it utterly destroyed any ability to trust that she might have had left.  She never saw Jacque again.

Now alone, Taliya would have to find her own way out.  She developed a sudden voracious appetite for reading that baffled the nuns, because although she was literate, she had never shown much interest in the books available to her in the library.  Now she read every dusty tome she could get her hands on if it looked like it might contain anything that might teach her more about the outside world.  If she wanted to make a plan, she had to know more; if she wanted to run away from this place, she had to know what she would be running to.

When she had learned all she could from the easily accessible books, Taliya set her sights on the forbidden tomes that the head priest kept hidden away from prying eyes, the ones that contained knowledge the church considered blasphemous.  At night, she would pick the lock to the storage room the children called "The vault" - a skill she had been taught by Jacque before he had abandoned her - and peruse the books inside for anything she could use.

It was in one of these books that Taliya discovered the secrets of nen.

Over the course of several months, Taliya spent hours every night painstakingly committing the instructions in the book to memory.  She began to practice daily, spending most of her time outside and out of sight of the orphanage to avoid being caught while she worked with her newly discovered power.  Once she mastered the basics, water divination allowed her to discover her nen type, which in turn allowed for her to begin developing her abilities.

At the age of fourteen, Taliya finally decided that she had learned all the book could teach her, and that she was well practiced and well educated enough that she could make her own way in the world.  But unlike Jacque, she would not be satisfied with just running away.  Leaving without fanfare or any announcement of her departure was simply not enough to quell the hatred that burned in her heart.

On a hot summer night, Taliya rose from her bed and proceeded to slaughter every single inhabitant of the orphanage with knives conjured using nen.  When she was finished, she doused every room and hall in oil, stepped outside, and lit a match, which she threw into the open door.  The whole building was soon engulfed in flames.  Covered in blood and a smile on her face, Taliya walked away from the inferno she had created, and she did not look back.

Taliya's childhood experiences left their mark, and have greatly coloured her view of the world and the experiences she has had in the twelve years since she struck out on her own.  Having experienced egregious abuse of authority by people in positions that allow them to stand above others, she has come to believe that it is simply the nature of those in power to keep the weak under their boot.  The only way to prevent the strong from crushing a person under their heel is for that person to become strong, themselves.  In Taliya's mind, strength is everything.

Taliya is the very definition of "does not play well with others."  She knows how to interact with people passably well, but not how to truly connect with them, nor does she particularly want to.  People tend to view her as aloof and even standoffish, and find that she lacks much in the way of empathy.  She keeps people at a distance and doesn't interact with most others if she doesn't have to.  Taliya makes acquaintances and business connections; she does not make friends.  Words like "trust" and "love" don't exist in her lexicon, and if asked, she is most likely to dryly reply that she has never heard of either concept.

Though she hasn't thought of Jacque in years, there is one thing he said that has stuck with her.  "A hunter is the strongest kind of person there is."  It was this memory that drove her to become a hunter herself.  This, along with her skewed worldview, is also what led her to choosing the surname Jaeger; she believes that all people are, without exception, either predator or prey, and that in such a world, anyone who wishes to survive must choose to be a predator.  Taliya takes this one step further in considering herself an apex predator, specifically, and she wanted her name to reflect that.

Despite seeing strength as a necessity, Taliya has come to find that there is a thrill like no other in doing battle with a similarly powerful opponent.  Acrobatic, agile, and highly skilled with various types of knives, she actively seeks this euphoria through bounty hunting, although she has begun to grow bored with this of late; her lack of a hunter's license precludes her from being permitted to take any bounties higher than A-rank, and these no longer provide her with a proper challenge.  Perhaps in obtaining a hunter's license, and in the higher privileges it will grant her, she will find the excitement she craves...

Trivia

• Taliya is able to conjure more than a dozen different types of knife using Knives Out, and is equally proficient with all of them.

• Though her outfits change with some regularity, Taliya always wears the same black biker jacket, even when not riding her motorcycle, which is her primary mode of transportation.  This is because, even though it looks like simple leather, it is actually made of a bulletproof material.

• She owns a small music player that she always keeps in her pocket, and usually has at least one earbud in, whether anything is playing or not.  She uses it to give the illusion that she isn't paying attention or listening to those around her, when she is actually acutely aware of her surroundings at all times.

• It would be hard to guess by looking at her, but Taliya is excellent at holding her alcohol due to spending a fair amount of her time in hunter bars.  Though she doesn't make a habit of it, she is capable of drinking men three times her size under the table.

• Taliya got her eyebrow scar in her first barfight.  Her opponent fared much worse.

• Her choice of tattoos may seem arbitrary to those not in the know, but anyone educated in botanical symbolism would realize that this is not the case.  The gladiolus represents strength and endurance, speaking to the struggles she has lived and fought through to attain the power she so values; the deadly nightshade warns of danger, suggesting to others that she is not to be trifled with; and the ivy holds the meaning of immortality, a simple and clear message to those who would seek to do her harm: "I will not die."

• There is a possibility that two of these plants actually have a secondary meaning...