NAME: Hugo Vlad CANON: Zenless Zone Zero AGE: Unstated, but likely very gracefully aging into his late 30s/40s HEIGHT: ~6'0" / 185cm SPECIES: Not Vampire. PROFESSION: He'll call himself "something of a collector". Surface civilian records point to ownership of an art gallery of some reputation in refined circles. But he'll often collect other things too...in other ways..... (He's a phantom thief. His full-time anonymous hobby is karmic thievery from the rich. The art gallery is a civvy shell gig. He leads "Mockingbird", a phantom thieves syndicate.)
VISUAL: Pale, tall and lean. Leggy. Noted by passerby as strikingly handsome, though there are fangs in his smile and his eyes have complete heterochromia--one pale blue, one blood red. Pointed ears. Long blond hair, usually partially braided back. Sometimes carrying a metallic briefcase. Likes his jewelry: bracelets, rings, a few ear piercings. Always dressed very fashionably, with a suit jacket draped over his shoulders; subdued palette of pale lavenders under dark purples, in glossy satins; very nice business shoes. (Every time he idles he looks like he's posing for Vogue magazine like sir pls--) Large sun and moon-themed medals pinned on his coat strap situation, and a gilded mockingbird-shaped pin on a lapel.
SOUND: I'll generally be pulling from his EN cadence in writing, though his CN VA is Liang Dawei, and his JP VA is Jun Fukuyama (of Joker from Persona 5 & Lelouch from Code Geass fame), to summarize The Vibes lol. Charismatic, well-spoken, just a bit posh; can swing from unabashedly theatrical to low and purring depending on the mood.
SCENT: Almost always wearing a nice and expensive cologne that apparently lingers on anything he pockets. Likely mostly cool and clean notes, maybe with hints of bergamot in there.
DEMEANOR: Initially acts like your typical wealthy eccentric, but generally cordially pleasant in day-to-day affairs. Likes to idly fiddle with a coin or two between his fingers when he's deep in thought. Does have a somewhat off-putting habit of being indirect and roundabout with the weirdest topics sometimes, alongside peppering people he finds interesting in oddly pointed questions here and there. Plus a worse habit of adding...a melodramatic flair to his phrasings at times. But he seems pretty candid--as a very effortless liar.
In business he will stay as on course as the act requires, and otherwise for the most part he keeps it fairly cajoling and restrained. Still, there will be occasions where he really starts hamming things up, and it's.......it's kinda chuuni sometimes, to be frank. Youths both on and off the internet have already canonly called it cringe rip--
PHYSICAL AFFECTION Go for it, but he'll probably take it very stiffly and find an excuse to shrug out of it asap, unless he knows you exceedingly well. Almost never initiates this himself, save for perhaps reinforcing a certain role he's playing at a given time. Well, maybe Vivian gets a headpat on extremely rare occasions when literally nobody else is looking...
PHYSICAL VIOLENCE: He knows it well. Initiate with caution, especially if he's carrying that metallic suitcase; it can unfold into a pretty big scythe, and he's quite proficient with it! (It can fire off icebeam rounds too....Ruby Rose wants her gunscythe patent back thx--) Suitcase aside, though, he's also almost always carrying knives and darts and other fun tools somewhere on his person, so chances are good that he's going to be armed even in more casual settings.
INJURING / KILLING: ICly, he also knows these things well. OOCly, injuries up to limb-breaking are free game, but let's discuss anything beyond that first. Would also prefer to plan out any murder plots beforehand.
MENTAL INFORMATION: When he's not saying shit like this to randoms on the street, he seems, fairly put-together! Externally! An aura of mystery, perhaps, but nothing egregious and at least half-intentional. Internally, well........let's chat OOC first before any mindreading that deep! But surface-level meta brackets in tags are fair game.
MAGICAL INFORMATION: While he doesn't hail from a canon that attributes power to "magic" in name, there is a phenomena present called "Ether" that might flag like magic for the sensitive? Ether is an ambient energy within warped spaces called Hollows, and it can physically corrupt a human being over prolonged exposure...but it can also be refined, crystallized, and utilized for all manner of fantastical effects. Hugo possesses a high level of "Ether aptitude"--the body's ability to weather Ether before corruption--that enables prolonged exposure to Hollow environments without immediate ill effects. He can also channel this into somewhat preternatural combat prowess, and the ice effects of his scythe are likely powered by Ether to some degree.
MEDICAL INFORMATION: Hugo has flatly stated that there are no such things as "vampires" in New Eridu--in fact it's one of the first things he talks about in his first canon appearance, because apparently he gets this misconception kind of, a lot. (Sometimes it's funny to lean on! Sometimes it's easier to clear the air upfront...) It can be assumed that he's otherwise fairly human, though I personally like to headcanon that he does have very mild bat thiren traits possibly, hence the fangs and ears. He normally seems perfectly capable of traveling in daylight with no ill effects, and has never been shown to consume human blood--in fact, he's hypoglycemic. So on a general basis he's probably a fairly healthy person otherwise...although. After certain life choices he makes over the course of 1.6-1.7, he goes on to suffer from lingering side effects that may yet persist for a little while, the symptoms of which most notably include a concerning paleness in complexion and a bit more sensitivity to bright light than normal. So. .........Yeah still absolutely fighting for his life against the vampire allegations lately lmfao--
OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS & TRIGGERS: ICly: He'll roll with most unsavory topics if they happen, though he has a pointed dislike of "false accusations placed on others", and some hangups involving the song and dance of climbing political ladders. (He knows how to do it! He can emulate it beautifully! ...Going through the motions invokes unpleasant memories every time!)
OOCly: As a rule I'd rather avoid detailed descriptions of gore; clinical mentions are fine, lovingly elaborate paragraphs not so much. Otherwise, generally I'll give a heads-up if something else bothers me mid-thread.
TAGGING PREFS: Player timezone is CST. I default to present-tense brackets, but can match any other formats and can swing regular prose just fine too if desired, so just lmk! Will backtag pretty much forever and trend on the slower side; generally faster with texting tags, but may sometimes have longer delays with meatier action threads.
My tags in general might trend on the longer end of things too sometimes (between too much fun with flavor text/introspection and Hugo also being a natural drama yapper lmao im sorry), but please never feel a need to match me--if something shorter can keep the thread moving, totally cool!
THREADHOPPING: Please check with both me and the latter party first!
FOURTHWALLING: Only if it's funny; narration jokes are fine, but would prefer avoiding extended in-character discussion.
CROSSCANON: Always! Cross-genre, cross-media, I'm down. Lightly assumed CR is fine. Hugo can AU fairly easily into more contemporary modern city settings, retaining his wealthy art gallery-owning civvy identity and phantom thief hobby in most cases. Alternatively, a latter character either AUing into Hugo's canon or just dropping in there as their vanilla self is also great! (Hollows are canonically dimensionally fucked already, very easy entry portal for straight up crossovers tbh...though you might need help getting out of them--) Or maybe we just jamjar it up with a premise we can hash out a bit beforehand, why not.
Wrt Hoyoverse specifically, I am very familiar with Honkai Star Rail (and could AU Hugo into that verse pretty easily!), but otherwise only peripherally familiar with the other games. Still, I'm happy to work with other players with more knowledge if we wanna whip up any crossovers!
SHIPPING/SMUT: ICly, 20+ adults preferred. Hugo can swing with the occasional mutually casual fling, though it's always 50/50 whether he's got an ulterior motive to bedding somebody or not.......and genuine romance is off the mental table at this point in his life atm. So it's a 100% chance that any overtly romantic approaches he makes are in the name of ulterior motives and Definitely Not Lasting.
OOCly, though, I'm a sucker for the good old Accidentally Catching Feelings Along The Way trope ✨✨ So I'm down to throw him together with just about anyone if the chemistry's there! Gender is no issue, m/m or m/f or m/* equally fine. For any ages below his IC preferred bracket, let's discuss OOC first beforehand. Overall open to threading smut of both the one night stand and slowburn varieties; kink list for that here, hmu if you'd like to further discuss any logistics! Fading to black is also cool if so preferred, just let me know!
I'm receptive to crosscanon or OCs with interesting dynamics, and as far as castmate shipping in specific goes, I'm usually willing to help contrive our way into encounters even if Hugo hasn't canonically met them yet. Naturally Lycaon/Hugo is encouraged with open arms...the divorce energy.....but I'm happy to try bouncing off most any other castmate at least once, including both MC twins! The burn will likely be slow in most cases, but lmk if interested 👀
NOTES: I'm up to date through 1.7 of ZZZ's main story, though I'm not quite comprehensively up to speed with all previous event content and agent stories yet, so ty in advance for bearing with me as I gain my sealegs wrt the finer points of the worldbuild lore!
Born to be an insufferable theater kid, forced to live a classic otome isekai villainess backstory with all of the psychological trauma and nowhere near enough of the hot romance to even make up for it 🫠(this is not even exaggerating btw....zzz knows what tropes it wants to crib and it is Shameless about it lmfao) A bastard child who spent his earliest years living in poverty with his mother. She considered his off-color eyes a loathsome reminder of her own failure to integrate into the social status and influence of his father's family--presumably because the heterochromia too blatantly revealed that Hugo wasn't a full-blooded heir--and so, after an abusive handful of years, she was all too happy to sell Hugo back to said father without question as soon as the man made the offer. From then on Hugo proceeded to spend the rest of his childhood under a gilded roof, with every comfort money could buy! ...While forced to play a perpetual squid game against his numerous other half-siblings, for the right to eventually take his father's place as the family head.
The general manners of high society were hammered in. But lying, cheating, and manipulation were also expected and encouraged traits. Murder was not at all off the table. You could and would be punished for, quite literally, failing to be a sufficiently cruel enough person...while offing a rival in a clever enough way was worthy of high praise. Hugo could apparently play the part well enough to repeatedly earn the approval of his vampire-lord-coded father, but he swiftly grew to hate this fact--and this game--with every single fiber of his being. His only recourse was one particular half-sister who wasn't much for the game either, and treated him with some actual kindness here and there. ...He would eventually be labeled as the cause of her death. Shortly after her passing, unable to stomach things any longer, Hugo ran away from that household with an ever-burning grudge against the entire system that created it.
Anyway, needless to say those formative years were uuh. Not. Great. Shit was fucked, and has dealt terrific damage to how Hugo engages with the people around him even in the present day. He still has a deeply ingrained habit of constantly analyzing weaknesses to exploit in others and ways others can exploit him, and it will probably never completely go away. He's also become exceedingly skilled at essentially "playing the villain so nobody else has to"; he's very good at going through the motions of a terrible person to draw blame to himself, often without ever actually trying to clear his name afterwards, to his own self-detriment. Constantly indirect and vague with his words even when he doesn't really need to be, he is chronically playing roles and donning masks; being openly honest takes active effort for him, and opening himself up to being vulnerable can be a daunting ask.
But it's not for a lack of trying. Not...for a lack of trying. Tearing himself free of his father's household did lead to him meeting far better role models and friends, new perspectives to grab and wrap around the sharp jagged pieces of his childhood traumas. Hugo has had many years to trial and error the vengeful and bitter inclinations of his demons at this point, with proud highs and truly wretched lows; they're never entirely going away, and are still quite apt to dictate worse habits when he doesn't check himself. But he has been trying...to live with them, instead of denying them. Making the best of the nasty talents he's honed to at least do something good for those less fortunate in the world. Mockingbird is the culmination of this, for better or for worse.
- While his right-hand eye is entirely normal, I wanna say the red left-hand one might have more light sensitivity (in keeping with the mild bat thiren possibility); in result, he can see just a bit better than most in the dark, but it also gives him just slightly more of a hard time during the day. Despite this, he refuses to wear shades or anything else that might obscure his eyes. His mother might have sometimes insisted on them when he was a child.
- In a similar vein, he's very aware of his unique features and shameless about utilizing them to make Impressions as needed. Has a lot of animations in combat context where he makes his red left eye much more prominent, going so far as to actively cover the right sometimes in chuuni-ass fashion; he also tends to conceal his fangs in friendly contexts, but brings them out much more prominently when displays of flair or intimidation are ideal. A wide grin goes a long way! He's distinctly pretty fangy in his Mockingbird persona especially.
- He likes having his hair long, but kind of hates wearing it down with a mirror nearby overly long. He looks a bit too much like his father, and the reminder's unpleasant. (He also just looks like an off-brand Alucard when it's down lmaooo IT CAN'T NOT BE INTENTIONAL,)
- Absolutely atrocious sleeping habits. Gets in maybe three hours at most when he does, which is very much not every night. What a childhood spent with the perpetual possibility of being murdered in your sleep does to a mf...alas, even the guyliner can't quite mitigate the eyebags.....
- His favored sweet is chocolate. His favored brand of chocolate is one very specific small pack of choco coins from the local 141 convenience shops--not at all high-end stuff, believe it or not. Otherwise his feelings on sweets are actually...not that, terribly avid, funnily enough. But popping back a candy or dessert remains a very easy and convenient way to deal with his terrible blood sugar.
- Granted said blood sugar would also be better if he didn't eat like a bird...but he does....not at all a hearty 3 meals guy, more a little snacks throughout the day guy. Still, despite his seemingly high-class pretenses, he's not at all a picky eater. A fast food burger in a pinch is fine too. His earliest memories still remember food scarcity a little too well...
- He's canonically excellent at sleight of hand, and probably honed this skill of his own volition from his youngest years. Probably picked more than a few pockets to survive, for a long while.
- His in-game texting chat avatar is disproportionately adorable?? And I'm almost positive Vivian probably drew it for him, so this is his equivalent of hanging the doodles up on the fridge...it's hinted she enjoys dabbling in arts and crafts, and he likely warmly encourages this.
- He and Lycaon clearly had the same combat teacher, who was surely Jack. Their initial basic attack animations are practically identical kicks...
- The suitcase is actually functional as a suitcase too!! Or at least, we have canon evidence he can apparently cram a whole array of coffee and desserts in there if so needed, among other things. Which raises some possibilities: either he has multiples of the suitcase that outwardly look identical but serve different functions depending on the occasion (ie one for weaponry and one for actual storage), or it's just the one suitcase, but it needs to be empty to function as a scythe, though it can otherwise carry things too. ...Or it somehow actually can be a weapon and store stuff at the exact same time, through ether-tech fuckery that somehow creates hammerspace. Idk. First option seems most feasible obvs, but all options are kind of funny regardless...
- His player handle in the arcade is just "Villain". Sir.........
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What's His Deal blurb
The general manners of high society were hammered in. But lying, cheating, and manipulation were also expected and encouraged traits. Murder was not at all off the table. You could and would be punished for, quite literally, failing to be a sufficiently cruel enough person...while offing a rival in a clever enough way was worthy of high praise. Hugo could apparently play the part well enough to repeatedly earn the approval of his vampire-lord-coded father, but he swiftly grew to hate this fact--and this game--with every single fiber of his being. His only recourse was one particular half-sister who wasn't much for the game either, and treated him with some actual kindness here and there. ...He would eventually be labeled as the cause of her death. Shortly after her passing, unable to stomach things any longer, Hugo ran away from that household with an ever-burning grudge against the entire system that created it.
Anyway, needless to say those formative years were uuh. Not. Great. Shit was fucked, and has dealt terrific damage to how Hugo engages with the people around him even in the present day. He still has a deeply ingrained habit of constantly analyzing weaknesses to exploit in others and ways others can exploit him, and it will probably never completely go away. He's also become exceedingly skilled at essentially "playing the villain so nobody else has to"; he's very good at going through the motions of a terrible person to draw blame to himself, often without ever actually trying to clear his name afterwards, to his own self-detriment. Constantly indirect and vague with his words even when he doesn't really need to be, he is chronically playing roles and donning masks; being openly honest takes active effort for him, and opening himself up to being vulnerable can be a daunting ask.
But it's not for a lack of trying. Not...for a lack of trying. Tearing himself free of his father's household did lead to him meeting far better role models and friends, new perspectives to grab and wrap around the sharp jagged pieces of his childhood traumas. Hugo has had many years to trial and error the vengeful and bitter inclinations of his demons at this point, with proud highs and truly wretched lows; they're never entirely going away, and are still quite apt to dictate worse habits when he doesn't check himself. But he has been trying...to live with them, instead of denying them. Making the best of the nasty talents he's honed to at least do something good for those less fortunate in the world. Mockingbird is the culmination of this, for better or for worse.
misc tidbits
- In a similar vein, he's very aware of his unique features and shameless about utilizing them to make Impressions as needed. Has a lot of animations in combat context where he makes his red left eye much more prominent, going so far as to actively cover the right sometimes
in chuuni-ass fashion; he also tends to conceal his fangs in friendly contexts, but brings them out much more prominently when displays of flair or intimidation are ideal. A wide grin goes a long way! He's distinctly pretty fangy in his Mockingbird persona especially.- He likes having his hair long, but kind of hates wearing it down with a mirror nearby overly long. He looks a bit too much like his father, and the reminder's unpleasant. (He also just looks like an off-brand Alucard when it's down lmaooo IT CAN'T NOT BE INTENTIONAL,)
- Absolutely atrocious sleeping habits. Gets in maybe three hours at most when he does, which is very much not every night. What a childhood spent with the perpetual possibility of being murdered in your sleep does to a mf...alas, even the guyliner can't quite mitigate the eyebags.....
- His favored sweet is chocolate. His favored brand of chocolate is one very specific small pack of choco coins from the local 141 convenience shops--not at all high-end stuff, believe it or not. Otherwise his feelings on sweets are actually...not that, terribly avid, funnily enough. But popping back a candy or dessert remains a very easy and convenient way to deal with his terrible blood sugar.
- Granted said blood sugar would also be better if he didn't eat like a bird...but he does....not at all a hearty 3 meals guy, more a little snacks throughout the day guy. Still, despite his seemingly high-class pretenses, he's not at all a picky eater. A fast food burger in a pinch is fine too. His earliest memories still remember food scarcity a little too well...
- He's canonically excellent at sleight of hand, and probably honed this skill of his own volition from his youngest years. Probably picked more than a few pockets to survive, for a long while.
- His in-game texting chat avatar is disproportionately adorable?? And I'm almost positive Vivian probably drew it for him, so this is his equivalent of hanging the doodles up on the fridge...it's hinted she enjoys dabbling in arts and crafts, and he likely warmly encourages this.
- He and Lycaon clearly had the same combat teacher, who was surely Jack. Their initial basic attack animations are practically identical kicks...
- The suitcase is actually functional as a suitcase too!! Or at least, we have canon evidence he can apparently cram a whole array of coffee and desserts in there if so needed, among other things. Which raises some possibilities: either he has multiples of the suitcase that outwardly look identical but serve different functions depending on the occasion (ie one for weaponry and one for actual storage), or it's just the one suitcase, but it needs to be empty to function as a scythe, though it can otherwise carry things too. ...Or it somehow actually can be a weapon and store stuff at the exact same time, through ether-tech fuckery that somehow creates hammerspace. Idk. First option seems most feasible obvs, but all options are kind of funny regardless...
- His player handle in the arcade is just "Villain". Sir.........