Mark Thunder / Cilantro

Personality

Cilantro is a young man with quite low of self-esteem, although this isn't very obvious due to his flamboyant behavior. However, his confidence is much more of an improvement from five years ago. He is highly loyal to the Jokers due to how he perceives them as a community and a family that he never had. Cilantro still retains his bleak outlook on life and his dry humor. As shown in a few collabs, Cilantro has now become much more rambunctious and a bit on the insane side. His favorite food is cinnamon buttered toast with blueberry jam. 

"The weak cannot be courageous." Although he still stands by what he said five years ago, Cilantro now believes that being strong doesn't only mean rank and magic. People like Myles, who wasn't even a royal, acted much like a royal. He had strength without magic, and he wasn't the weak pitiful boy he once was. Cilantro is driven forward by the possibility of revenge just on the verge of the sunrise.

Backstory

"Lads and ladies, I present to you: the great Mark Thunder!"

A short boy with scraggly golden brown hair stepped out from behind the patterned red and white tent, each hand armed with four darts On his right hand was a tarnished ring with a jagged mana stone. His face was a picture of uncertainty, defiance, and fear. The audience was whispering. They didn't know who this newcomer was, and based on the way that his slumped posture was presented, it didn't seem like he was a talented newcomer. 

The boy walked over to a target, where a volunteer was splayed out against. The target was particularly small, leaving no room for error. If the boy was off by more than just an inch, the deadly darts in his hand would impale the volunteer. The boy raised his arm, and with the audience holding their breath with anticipation, let loose the four darts.

They each struck the board in the small areas where the target's body parts didn't occupy. Impossibly, the boy raised his left hand-- his nondominent hand-- and let loose of the darts. They slammed into the target-- millimeters away from the other darts.

With this, the crowd let loose applause. Not particularly loud and thundering, but applause nonetheless. The boy looked up at the crowd, unsure what to make of the sounds. He looked back at the circus master, who gave him an encouraging thumbs up. 

At first, the boy's smile was doubting and cautious. But when the crowd continued to applaud, finally smiled, finally truly smiled, knowing that for once, he was appreciated.

In the Spades kingdom, there were a cult of mages. It was mostly twos and threes, and led by an eight. Their goal was to create a superior mage by infusing their souls with one of a phoenix, through the use of a fossilized phoenix feather. They worked tirelessly to try to obtain the correct conditions for the miracle to happen. But just as they thought that they succeeded, they were given a failure.

A failure that was later known as Cilantro of the Jokers. The cult of mages knew immediately that he was a failure, so as such, they attempted to sacrifice him to the demons in hopes of acquiring some sort of power. Fortunately, a traveling circus that was passing by saved Cilantro from his fate.

He was picked up by the traveling circus, and spent most of his early years in their ranks, practicing an art so that he may be useful to them. As a result, he became one of the best dart throwers in the kingdom. 

After years of performing for Miss Taylor's Cirque Delirium, the war between the Argossians and the Suits began. At first, he wasn't allowed to participate-- he was way too young. But when he turned 15, he immediately joined up with the Jokers.

Why the Jokers? Because in his early childhood, Cilantro grew to resent the ways of the Four Suits (as such, he was an opposer to the alliance between the Jokers and the Heart royals). He was created in a competitive race to be the most powerful mage, and as such, the most privileged. And when he was deemed a failure, he was cast out and ostracized by the general public.

So that's where his story starts. But not before long, it will end.

Five Year Timeskip

With the five year timeskip, Cilantro has grown up into a new man. This was mostly due to one particular person-- Myles Rein, a happy-go-lucky Argossian. You'll have to wait for my flashbacks if you want to know what happens, however I will hint that it will involve all the following: Jokers, martial arts, and holidays, oh my!

Abilities

• Soul of the Phoenix: Cilantro can spark a weak flame in his hand at will. Of course, this is completely nullified by his ring

• Superior Dart Throwing: Cilantro has the agility to throw a dart and hit a bullet out of the air

• Stream Breath: Cilantro can use stream breath while using his darts as a weapon, relying on parries and indirect comebacks to make up for his lack of strength. This was taught to Cilantro by Kaiden. Due to Cilantro's temperament, he relies more on techniques than on chi channeling, however, Cilantro is fully capable of channeling his chi to give him immunity to attacks.

  • Goading Blow: Unlike most Stream Breath users, Cilantro can attack unprovoked without breaking his stream breath stance. The intention of this attack is to make it too dangerous for the enemy to not attack back. 

  • Flames of Desire: Cilantro can infuse his counterattacks with chi that sap the strength of whoever it hits, transferring that strength to Cilantro. If Cilantro chooses to infuse his darts with this chi, then whoever gets hit by the darts will continuously lose strength, with that strength being given to Cilantro, until the affected opponent pulls out those darts.

  • Shield of the Night (LOCKED): Cilantro can make a shield in front of him and choose whether it is connected to him or not. If it is connected, then any attack will simply push Cilantro back to safety, which means that he doesn't have to use a lot of physical strength to maintain the shield. If he chooses to not connect the shield, then any ranged attack will automatically change direction in a certain angle depending on the strength of the attack. Cilantro will know which direction it'll change.

• Cirque Delirium: Cilantro has monkey-like agility that is due to his circus training 

Gear

• An absurd amount of darts. These have poisoned tips thanks to the Assassins Guild.

• Mana Neutralization Ring: One of the secret Joker projects-- a ring that holds Four of the Royal Flushe's power. This ring can be activated with mana, and when initially activated, will only affect the user. The user then can by will set the ring to work in four modes: Personal (affects the user only), Close Combat (5 ft radius), Kite (12 ft radius), Flushe (20 ft radius). Cilantro's favorite setting is Kite.

• Emperor of Hearts: A specific dart that Cilantro has, identifiable by its larger size,  flame-red body and the use of an Argossian steel tip. It was enchanted by the Ace of Hearts, Leolin, and is capable of burning through even the strongest of mage defenses. 20,000 mana has been stored up, however, it has been enchanted with only 2k strength. There is also an enchantment on it that allows it to instantly return to the user after being used.

• Absolute Downfall (Special/Uncommon): Cilantro's collar, which is enchanted to provide Cilantro with higher phys (500)

• Grappling hook and line

Relations

• Kaiden: Kaiden is like a bigger brother to Cilantro in a world where he never had family. He was the one who taught Cilantro the art of Stream Breath

• Myles Rein: Cilantro and Myles are best friends, even though Cilantro doesn't know that Myles has a crush on him.

• Zephyr "Twig" Terwilliger: Cilantro dislikes Twig due to his royal status, but he does find companionship in the fact that both of them have faced quite a loss.

• Guin: Similar to his outlook on Twig, Cilantro dislikes Guin because she's a royal. But he also totally has a crush on her.

• Lewis Edumench: Steady allies. 

• Miss Taylor: A transgender singer and a master of voice and boob enlargement magic. Saved Cilantro from the cultists, as such, Cilantro has a lot of respect for her. 

• Spike: A werewolf who worked with the circus. Told great campfire stories.

• Stick: A sacrifice mage tomboy who bakes fantastic treats only to sacrifice them for acrobatic powers. She used to be a cultist before joining the circus. Cilantro, although he was scared of her at first, gained a strong student-teacher relation with her

• Roc: The animalkeeper of the circus, or as he prefers, the duckkeeper of the circus. He's a short, red haired lad with the power to speak with animals. A female duck named Janice took a liking to Roc and settled down with him. Roc was not happy with this arrangement, and neither were the male harem of ducks following her. Cilantro is good friends with Roc, and even knows one of the male ducks by name, Oswald. It's unknown how Cilantro can differentiate him out from all the other ducks. Roc's main goal is to find a home for every one of the ducks in Janice's harem.

Influences: Black Butler Book of Circus, Persona 3 (Cilantro's pre-timeskip FC is an early design of Ken Amada)