Giraffes
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(3/31/06 6:06 pm)
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Danya Turchin
Out of character information:
Name: Laura
Contact: doffed@hotmail.com, AIM: TardyGaited
In Character Information:
MAFIA
Avatar: Mipam Thurman (Yeah, Uma’s little brother.)
Name: Danya Matviyko Turchin
Alias: “Bilyla Hadyuka,” or “the White Adder”—being that he is widely known for his quiet, unassuming business sense, swift delivery of death and consequence (never seen until it’s too late), and blond hair, Danya has been dubbed aptly by his subordinates. (His father, a dark-haired man with a penchant for creating a stir, is fittingly known as ‘the Black Cobra.’)
Age: twenty-six [26] year old
Family:
» Father
- Matviyko Turchin
- fifty-six [56] years old – Incarcerated in a Japanese prison.
» mother
- Lavra Turchinowa
- forty-seven [47] years old
» younger sister
- Sofiya Turchinowna
- nineteen [19] years old
» younger brother
- Vanko Turchin
- eighteen [18] years old
» obligatory fiancée
- Marynia Shevchuka
- twenty [20] years old
Occupation: Stand-in leader of the Chernihivshchyna Bratva¹, extortionist, and arms dealer.
Weapons: Danya is the head of his particular group of mafiosi; he has no need to be skilled with weaponry—he is constantly surrounded by his occupational brothers, all of whom would gladly take a bullet for him (even if it was only to please his father). Plus, the Chernihivshchyna Bratva is famous for its ruthless treatment of patsyuk, (rats) and zradnyki (betrayers): brutal, messy murder of not only the ne’er-do-well, but his immediate family also. Only martyrs dare to attempt assassinations, but are usually made clumsy by their passion, and exterminated efficiently.
Be that as it may, Danya is quite knowledgeable when it comes to weapons—firearms, at least—as he is the king of under-the-table gun sales. His clients are always big names with big budgets and, as such, Danya frequently settles seven-figure deals and oversees the exchange of thousands of lethal weapons. He knows guns inside and out (literally), and can wield most of them effectively. Considered something of a sharp-shooter, his skills are honed and utilized more at his home shooting range than in life-or-death combat.
Description:
Despite the stereotype ingrained by Popular Culture, not all mafiosi are swarthy, dark-haired Italians with characteristic accents; not all ‘mob bosses’ are raspy-voiced men in their fifties. As the young leader of the oft-overlooked (but extremely dangerous) Russian Mafia, Danya is a far cry from the purveyors of organized crime that were featured in <i>The Godfather</i>.
Unassuming in build—lacking bulging muscles and having, instead, a slender frame—Danya is intimidating enough: his height of six-foot-three [6’3”] and omnipotent frown negate his inherent lankiness, enabling him to silence squabbling hitmen or arguing CEOs with just a single, steely gaze. But it is only amongst his legions that this power can be exerted; the unassuming masses will always refuse to part before a skinny blond guy, no matter how perturbed he looks. In essence, it’s only by grace of his lineage that he can command anyone in the first place.
A prominent nose, a strong chin, and deep-set eyes denote an Eastern European heritage, while graying temples, omnipresent brow-creases, and a dark visage betray the stress Danya has been forced to deal with every day for three years. Being constantly caught in the throes of an intense moral battle—upholding his father’s empire versus sating his conscience—has aged him prematurely; solemnity seems to ooze from his pores and he hardly ever smiles.
Inheriting his mother’s haircolor and the texture of his father’s, Danya’s hair is straight, a bit limp, and the color most often referred to as “bilyavyy temnyy” by his countrymen—“dirty blond” to those who can’t speak Ukrainian. Though he wears it longer than many would prefer, the effect never has a messy connotation, as Danya’s position in the pecking order gives him the impetus to appear polished. Thus, his attire is always flawlessly pressed, impeccably fitted, and styled for even the biggest business mogul, something which he is...at least in the crime world.
Personality:
For a young man in his mid-twenties, Danya is certainly a serious fellow—as well he should be, all things considering...
At one time Danya had been just another twenty-something, albeit one whose father was an infamous leader of the Red Mafia². His biggest problems were bad haircuts and bad dates and deciding where to attend graduate school. His family had enough money to keep him perpetually comfortable and he had lived a lavish existence as a spoiled cretin with a crippling entitlement complex.
Then, one day, his father was arrested without warrant by the Japanese Yakuza, a group with whom the Organizatsiya³ frequently warred. The suddenly-leaderless latter fled from their comfortable empire in the Ukrainian province of Chernihivs’ka oblast’ to the neutral ground of America, and were welcomed warmly by the small Red Mafia pockets that had been functioning as arms-exchange outposts for years. It was at that moment, as he watched everything his father had built crumbling before his eyes, that Danya grew up. He took the reigns without protest as they were passed in his direction, and began stringing back together the Organizatsiya, piece by piece.
His first act as Kerivnyk (leader) was the most personal of his blossoming career: in a derelict warehouse that would be burned promptly after his exit, Danya shot his father’s conspirators one by one, forever cementing himself as more than just “Matviyko’s son.” Since then, he’s returned his own mafia to its former (albeit smaller) glory, and has had no other reason to bloody his hands—his hitmen take care of that—which is a good thing for the young mafioso, considering his aversion to first-hand murder.
To be perfectly frank, Danya isn’t the natural-born leader his father had hoped him to be. He is entirely too soft-spoken and tends to concentrate too much on the humanitarian aspects of the world around him—a world from which he is trying to extort wealth for his followers. Being a cat burglar would probably suit him better than does organized crime, but his intense (and obligatory) loyalty towards his father keeps him seated upon his tarnished throne. Even now, after three years of fruitless haggling with the Yakuza, he is still holding out hope that his father will be released, thereby releasing him from the shackles of obligation that are keeping him chained to a position he never wanted to hold.
But Danya isn’t completely useless at his job; he does, in fact, have quite a few exceptional qualities that have given a good number of people cause to pit the father and son against each other in an effigy-battle of leadership skill. While Matviyko, for example, had excelled when it came to stomping out internal conflicts with all the subtlety of an elephant, Danya prefers to settle things in a more discreet manner, and is often able to have entire families destroyed without so much as a puff of smoke drifting away on the breeze. He uses little bravado when making and carrying out threats, takes care of business deals in an incredibly efficient manner, and, in general, runs his little empire with an iron fist that is as quiet as it is firm. In short, he has made himself out to be someone that demands both fear and respect, two things that are often difficult to come by in such a piety-driven atmosphere.
Danya is not, however, sociable by any stretch of the imagination. Though he can deal easily with the starched suits and stony faces of those business people with whom he interacts for economic gain, his personal relationships are somewhat lacking. Sure, he has a fiancée, but their pending marriage is just another business venture; as it is, Danya has spent more time with Marynia’s father (a very wealthy CEO in Moscow) than he has with her. It’s safe to bet that, once married, the two will see each other even less than the biyearly visits force them to now.
Even Danya’s relationship with his family is strained. Aside from the fact that he’s quite certain that Vanko is having an affair with his fiancée, he is often driven to the point of insanity by the whining demands of his infantile siblings. Though both are in their late teens, they are a pair of over-indulged maniacs who are too used to getting their way to be able to even conceptualize anything different. Remembering his own days spent in that delusional world, Danya tries his best to bring his brother and sister into reality, but his plans are often thwarted by their mother, who would much prefer to give her children anything they want rather than risk their wrath.
Often overwhelmed by all the shit on his plate, Danya frequently pines for his father and would pay any ransom for his safe return—too bad the Yakuza prefer misery over money.
For Reference:
I did quite a bit of research for this character, thus I make reference to a bunch of terms and concepts, the meanings of which were completely unknown to me before looking them up. So, I thought I’d make it easier for you.
¹Bratva
Russian/Ukrainian slang often used in those countries in reference to organized crime groups. Directly translated, it means “brothers” or “the brotherhood,” and I use the term gratuitously to mean ‘the mafia.’
Chernihivshchyna Bratva
A fictional mafia sect I made up that is meant to be a Ukrainian arm of the real-life Russian Mafia (see “Red Mafia”). Chernihivshchyna is the formal name of a city in the province of Chernihiv Oblast—both the city and the province are quite real.
² Red Mafia
A name given abroad to groups of organized criminals of various ethnicity which appeared from the Soviet Union after its disintegration. Apart from ethnic Russians, the term comprises the Chechen, the Georgian, the Ukrainian, the Armenian, the Azeri mafiosi, as well as so called "mafia" groups from other former USSR republics. (from Wikipedia)
³ Organizatsiya
The Russian formal name for a bratva.
- Map of the Ukraine
- English-to-Ukrainian Dictionary (Really friggin’ helpful.)
- article on the Russian Mafia
- article on Chernihivs'ka_oblast'
- article on the Commonwealth of Independent States
Sample Role-play: (As I’ve seen a bunch of people doing this, I’ll just say “I play/have played three characters on Curtain Call: Bobby, Carr, and Misha” and hope that will suffice. If not, I can easily write something up. Merci!)
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