Little Bunny Foo Foo (Brook)

NAME: Asher

CONTACT: asherdashery; Discord: asherdashery

AGE: Over 30

OTHER CHARACTERS: N/A

TRIGGERS: N/A

CHARACTER NAME: Brook

CANON: I'm the Grim Reaper

CANON POINT: Between Episode 127 and 133

AGE: Physically 18, as that's the age at which he died; Brook has existed as an un-aging Reaper for at least 100 years on top of that

HISTORY: The wiki is weak, so:

[CWs throughout: Judeo-Christian religious imagery, simultaneously inaccurate to traditions and treated as real in the world of the comic; murder; the undead]

Past: Brook was originally a human named Alexander Chykov, who lived in an as-yet unrevealed time and location that at least resembles early 20th-century Russia. His family enjoyed the privileges of both material wealth and noble lineage, except for his older half-sister, Natasha, who was the illegitimate daughter of a mistress. As such, the true-born Alexander was named heir to the Chykov fur trading company; Natasha was never even considered. Young Alexander's days were highly regimented, with every hour filled by various tutors and approved activities, while Natasha was largely left to her own devices. Over time, she grew to resent both her father, who ignored her talents and dedication to preserve the "purity" of the family business by leaving it to his son, and her younger brother, who showed no interest in the work he was being trained for. In fact, Alexander seemed to have no real passions of his own. He formed no connections, not even with his father and sister, and only passively did as he was told.

Their father died suddenly when Alexander was ten years old. While Natasha took over company leadership at the time, a clause in the man's will made it clear that Alexander was to inherit everything once he turned eighteen. She swore to grow the Chykov company's profits so greatly that they would beg her to remain as leader.

[CWs: strangulation, fratricide] Eight years later, on or just after Alexander's eighteenth birthday, his sister strangled him to death with the tacit approval of everyone in the Chykov house.

Because Alexander was neither sinful nor particularly good during his lifetime, God sorted his soul into purgatory. There, he spent an immeasurable time among the rest of the morally mediocre dead, listening to them chatter about their lives, wandering around purgatory's endless expanse of nature. The longer he spent there without a purpose, the deeper Alexander sank into melancholy. He decided to fulfill the one thing he felt anyone had ever wanted from him: to let his sister take his place.

He'd learned that it was possible to get from purgatory to the first circle of hell; he was also wholly sure Natasha ended up somewhere in hell, given the whole "murdering her little brother" thing. So, following the streams crisscrossing purgatory to stay oriented, he walked, and walked, and walked, until he finally reached hell. (He renamed himself "Brook" after those rivers.) When he met Satan, he asked to switch places with Natasha--to take her place in hell and give her his spot in purgatory. Satan, intrigued by this honestly bananas request, informed Brook that, since he wasn't a sinner, he couldn't stay in hell as he was. Brook agreed to become a Reaper: to inhabit a flesh puppet recreation of his original body, let Satan stuff a demon down his throat, return to the living realm, and kill one person bearing a Sinner's Mark by midnight every day. He did just that for roughly a hundred years.

Brook realized early on that the Sinner's Mark appeared on people who committed only minor transgressions as well as genuinely bad people. Not wanting to kill relative innocents, but also unwilling/unable to do the work of investigating every single target's sins, at some point Brook struck another deal, this time with the human boss of the worst gang in the city. By his logic, anyone involved with the Red Spades had to be bad enough to deserve hell, so he could kill them without guilt. In return, he would follow the boss's orders, generally enabling the gang get on with the nasty work of drugs, kidnapping, organ trafficking, and so on.

Present Events: [CW: dismemberment] When Satan's newest Reaper, Scarlet, runs into the Red Spades looking for hints of her past, Brook drives her violently off and captures her friend, Chase Carter. Scarlet loses control of her own demon while rescuing him and literally rips Brook apart. Satan repairs his body and sends him back to the living realm, but the experience humbles Brook. Loath to repeat it, he lets Chase talk him into a new deal: If he works with them, he can fulfill his quota of one dead sinner a day with their list of dismissed police cases. In return, he has to help Scarlet learn to rein in her demon.

He turns out to be a surprisingly stalwart companion. He protects Scarlet from an archangel that wants to wipe out the out-of-control Reaper. Then, when Scarlet is confined to the ninth circle of hell for disobedience, he challenges Satan to a game of tag with his own eternal sentence on the line; if Brook wins, Satan has to release Scarlet, but if he loses, he'll let Satan judge his soul, which, after more than 35,000 murders, is far from sinless. They tie, so Satan lets Brook retrieve Scarlet, but Brook is re-sentenced. The next time he misses a Reaping deadline or breaks Satan's rules, he goes straight to the ninth circle, not back to purgatory. After this, the stakes of Brook's existence are much higher.

[CWs: dismemberment, medical torture] Those stakes come to confront him quickly. Chase asks Brook to investigate the shady hospital where Scarlet once worked by himself, since the authorities are searching for Chase and Scarlet. A doctor named Judah activates a trap that chops Brook up (again) so that he can experiment on his Reaper body to see what makes him work. Helpless to protect himself or to kill a sinner as required, Brook all but gives up hope; thankfully, Scarlet rescues what's left of him and helps his disembodied hand kill a woman, saving him and cementing their friendship.

After that, Brook continues helping them puzzle out Scarlet's past. He remains with them at his current canonpoint, hidden among the Red Spades.


PERSONALITY:

What impression does your character give when meeting someone for the first time? How does the first impression differ from your character’s true nature?

Even at first glance, Brook gives contradictory impressions; while his pink-and-white rabbit getup and unprepossessing size make him look cute, friendly, and harmless, his default expressions are "coldly bored" and "annoyed." Talking to him underlines that sense of standoffish apathy. He's blunt, unsmiling, and doesn't seem to understand basic tenets of operating among others, such as "it's good to work together" or "remember people's names when they introduce themselves." A century of never going out without a literal mask on and only interacting with humans long enough to slaughter them will do that to ya.

That impression of uncaring coldness isn't wrong. Brook genuinely isn't interested in most people, or even most things; given the deals he strikes to keep Natasha and Scarlet out of hell, he's only barely interested in his own well-being.

What's compelling is the root of that apathy. Not once in Brook's long existence has he been able to find inherent meaning to his own being. Because his whole human life was predetermined for him down to the minute--and he never bothered fighting those currents--he didn't properly develop the ability to determine what he does want. Brook searches for purpose outside of himself, not realizing what he truly craves is meaning--which he's slowly starting to find in the genuine friendships he makes, starting with fellow Reaper Scarlet. Those who stick by Brook will find that his standoffishness can easily be reconstrued as poor socialization, that he tries to be kind when he can, and that he's profoundly loyal to those who extend him the hand of friendship.

How does your character handle stress? What do they do in an emergency?

Brook is noted in canon to be the Reaper with the greatest control over his demon, which means not letting extreme emotions run away with him. However, this does not mean he's a master of emotional equilibrium. In fact, he admits that he has no idea how to deal with powerful feelings, because he rarely ever feels them. For over a century, Brook rarely felt anything other than "fine;" neither happy nor sad, but apathetic. As an undead creation with no connections, few needs, and nothing worse to fear than a return to the boredom of purgatory, he had little reason to stress.

That means when he does feel something strongly, it can overwhelm him. When Satan punishes Scarlet in the ninth circle of hell, the guilt Brook feels--even though he hardly knows Scarlet at that point, even though they weren't yet allies when he leaked information to Satan, even though Chase agrees that it isn't his fault, and even though he warned them both not to trust him--compels him to risk an eternity of torture himself to free her and rid himself of the feeling. Later in the webtoon, after his helplessness at Judah's hands, he is so afraid of experiencing anything like that again that the next time an enemy gets the upper hand against him, the fear snaps his tightly-held control and his demon takes over.

In summary, Brook's best strategy against stress is not to care about anything deeply enough to feel it. If that fails and he actually has something to worry about, he either makes bad decisions about it or panics.

What are your character’s fears? How do they hinder or challenge your character?

[CWs: medical torture, unreality] As noted above, Brook is terrified to feel anything like he did while Judah was experimenting with him. Unfortunately for Brook, he's been informed that the ninth circle of hell--which is where his soul is now sentenced to go once he makes a slip as a Reaper--is going to be an eternity of pretty much exactly that experience. The ninth circle, reserved for the absolute worst sinners, is a complete void. Those sentenced there see nothing and feel nothing, not even pain, and must remain acutely aware of how much nothing there is, forever.

Brook is so afraid of that fate that he'll cede the control he kept for a hundred years to the demon inside him, even though, once released, that demon will kill anyone and anything it can get its hellish limbs on, including innocents and his own friends. Knowing that even if he manages to outlast the universe, he will eventually run out of sinners to kill and thus his sentence is unavoidable, makes thinking about the future impossible. He can only look and plan so far ahead. In these ways, fear makes him short-sighted and sometimes irrational.

INVENTORY:

Outfit: Brook's default outfit consists of a crop-top so big on him, it sometimes hangs off his shoulders, skinny black pants that cut off just below the knee, dangling suspenders, magenta gloves, and a long ribbon tied around his head to give him a bunny ears look. Satan designed this costume for him.

Cell phone: A generic smartphone with a pink rabbit-themed case.

SKILLS/ABILITIES:

So, Satan makes a Reaper by creating a "flesh puppet" that mimics but is not a living body, then puts both a dead human soul and a powerful demon inside it. I've divided Brook's abilities into two categories, those that seem to be more just consequences of his being an undead creation, and those powers deriving from the demon that shares his body.

"Powers" of His Undead Puppet Body:

• Biological Immortality: Brook doesn't age. He's looked exactly the same since he died and doesn't get sick or infected.
• Impossible to Kill: Because he's already dead, you can do pretty much anything to Brook's body, even chop it up or liquify it, and he won't "die." Under normal canon circumstances, he would go back to hell upon killing a sinner or missing his deadline, and Satan could regrow his physical body.
• No Need to Eat or Sleep: Brook doesn't need to eat or sleep. Even if his demon is removed from his body, he has no energy requirements.
• Resistance to Demonic/Divine Influence: Reapers' bodies are intentionally built to withstand a certain amount of demonic influence without the human soul corrupting. This seems to apply to God-aligned forces as well.

Demon Powers:

• Manifesting Demon Energy/Weapons: When Brook taps into his demon's powers, he manifests a black energy (with magenta accents) that takes physical form. He typically uses it to reinforce his hands/gloves or his feet and calves. When he does so, he can easily rip through S.W.A.T. armor (and the person inside it) with a kick or swipe of his arm. In theory, he could manifest other shapes or weapons, but Reapers apparently stick to a single signature so that they can master it. By always choosing to reinforce his limbs, Brook restricts himself to hand-to-hand combat.
• Enhanced Strength, Speed, and Durability: That said, Brook is naturally stronger, swifter, and sturdier than a human, and enhancing himself with his demon energy only increases that. We've seen Brook almost outrun Literal Actual Satan, block Scarlet's demon energy scythe with his hands, and throw a car into a helicopter. That said, gunfire can and will pierce his body unless he blocks it with his demon energy.
• Pain Negation: If he can see it coming, Brook can choose not to feel pain! That's handy. This ability seems to diminish or go away entirely if a Reaper cannot access their demon.
• Sinners' Marks: If a human has committed a great enough sin (which can range from mass murder down to mere theft above a certain value threshold), they are marked to a Reaper's eye with a big red X across their chest. These X's are invisible to humans.



• Losing Control: Not strictly a power. Primal emotions like fear or anger strengthen a Reaper's demon. The stronger the demon, the more powerful the above abilities, but the more likely it also is to take control of the Reaper's body. A Reaper can take control back as long as they wrest their emotions into line, but past a certain point, the demon will spill out. It is almost impossible to revert control back to the human soul once that happens.

NERFING:

I'm going to do this by numbers to try to make sure I'm being reasonable. Brook at full strength = 100 points; more points are allocated to abilities that are more actively supernatural.

Flesh Puppet Nonsense: (NON-NERFED TOTAL: 30)

• Biological Immortality: Brook does not age, but can get sick or infected, particularly as a result of City events. (5 --> 2)
• Impossible to Kill: Anything that would kill a human will now kill Brook. Hurray! (10 --> 0)
• No Need to Eat or Sleep: Brook still doesn't need most nutrients, but requires at least sugar in order to keep moving. If he's injured, proteins and such will also be necessary to heal. He now also needs a couple hours of sleep a night. (10 --> 3)
• Resistance to Demonic/Divine Influence: Brook is now as vulnerable as anyone to demonic influences not his own. (5 --> 0)

(NERFED TOTAL: 5)

Demon Stuff: (NON-NERFED TOTAL: 70)

• Manifesting Demon Energy/Weapons: Unless Brook diverts power away from his speed, he can only manifest enough demon energy to cover one hand or foot at a time, and the destructive power is now akin to a really strong, but still humanly possible blow. If he drops his strength and speed to that of a normal human, he can cover both hands and hit twice as hard as a human. (30 --> 7)
• Enhanced Strength, Speed, and Durability: Brook is now only slightly stronger than he looks, very fast but still within the range of what's humanly possible, and as durable as a human who's never exercised a day in his life would be. If he diverts all his demon energy into his feet and leaves his hands bare, he can run as fast as a bicycle for a couple hours before he gets tired. (30 --> 7)
• Pain Negation: He can dim pain and tough it out somewhat better than a normal human, but he still definitely feels it. (5 --> 1)
• Sinners' Marks: Bye-bye, big red X's. (5 --> 0)



• Losing Control: If Brook loses control, his demon self is no more powerful than his usual City-nerfed self. (0 --> 0)

(NERFED TOTAL: 15)


WEAKNESSES:

• Not a weakness per se, but worth mentioning since one might think this would work: While demonic in nature, Reapers do not seem to have particular reactions to the angelic or divine forces present in canon. Stereotypical anti-demon measures such as crosses or holy water also probably have no effect.

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