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pekoeboo · 2 years

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Character backstory time!

EDIT: unfortunately, most of what I've written here is outdated information by this point in time;; I've changed a lot of things since I wrote this (even though I said I wouldn't change much lol), but I haven't had the chance to write down a new post all of the things I've adjusted or taken out entirely yet, if I ever manage to do so at all, that is.

If you have any questions, feel free to send an ask about it! I'd be more than willing to try and clarify things, if possible!

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with Khalan's birthday coming up (Oct. 29th), I figured I might as well do something kind of Special and share his whole backstory with y'all since I've never explained everything in full :0 he's really the only character so far who has a backstory that's stayed consistent pretty much since his creation, so I feel comfortable sharing it as there's not much that I'm planning on changing about it. this got extremely long tho so it's going under a cut. I hope that's okay.

NOTE: TW for some mentions of parental abuse (psychological and emotional, specifically) and death of family members.

Khalan's story starts off in the secluded desert village of Malja: a shining oasis in the middle of the harsh, arid climate. his parents (Jal and Cleo) ran a farm along the irrigation canals by the water's edge, and the two of them had plans of continuing with that profession for the rest of their lives.

what they didn't plan, however, was a baby - Jal never wanted kids to begin with, so he and his wife were careful not to conceive for that reason. but of course Cleo ended up getting pregnant, which Jal saw as a terrible stroke of bad luck.

pregnancy was kinda rough, things usually didn't go great, but that was mostly due to Cleo's family line being cursed with a tangible bad luck that had stretched on through her family for generations. she knew that Jal didn't want kids, but she tried her best to placate that by telling him that she'd be the one to raise their kid so he didn't have to cut back on his work.

unfortunately, Cleo died not too long after Khalan was born, so the responsibility was placed squarely on Jal's shoulders to raise the kid he never wanted. However, for the first year or so, Khalan was actually given to another family who had just had a child - so that mother could keep him fed until he was old enough to eat solid food. in that time, Jal fell into a terrible state of depression over the loss of his wife, and he never quite learned how to move on from that bad mental state once Khalan was placed into his possession again.

that emotional distress carried over into his treatment of Khalan, to which he ended up being emotionally neglectful and quite harsh over the years. Jal had no frame of reference for what a good father was supposed to be, as his own dad was abusive (and was actually banished from the village because he got caught) and his mother was negligent, so that kind of behavior is all Jal knew how to replicate.

as a result, Khalan grew up in a household where everything he did was scrutinized and he was never "good enough" for Jal no matter how hard he tried. expressing his frustration or discontent over this treatment usually only led to strict punishment (such as being forced to work in the field for much longer than he was physically capable of, or even being denied food), so Khalan eventually learned to rarely speak his mind in order to avoid making his father angry with him.

On the flipside, though, his relationship with his grandfather (Cleo's dad) was wonderful. Although things were tense between his grandfather and Jal (as the latter refused to acknowledge Cleo's existence, and the former was very open about talking about her), Khalan would always sneak away to the library to spend time with his grandfather even when he was supposed to be working at the farm. Jal explicitly told Khalan not to do that because of his own personal issues and grudges, but the loving relationship that Khalan and his grandfather had was enough for the boy to push his boundaries and disobey Jal's orders just so that he could hang out with the librarian.

a lot of Khalan's kind and caring nature comes from this bond. his grandfather was a gentle but humorous man, who loved to tell stories and crack jokes and share details about his daughter's life with Khalan - so he could appreciate who his mother was even though he never really got to know her.

sadly, his grandfather got sick and ultimately passed away when Khalan was around 16, but before he passed, he was the one who brought up the concept of travel and cartography. Cleo always wanted to travel outside of the village, but she willingly put that dream of hers aside once she married Jal. Khalan, on the other hand, became enthralled with the idea of taking up his mother's dream as his own and doing the very thing that she couldn't do.

the only issue? Jal didn't want him going anywhere. though he clearly didn't really show much respect for Khalan as a person, something that he DID hold onto was the fact that Khalan had the strange ability to see things beyond what he knew via his dreams. Jal knew this was useful, and he became reliant on Khalan as a sort of "prophet" to warn him of dangers to their property before they happened.

of course, Khalan's visions didn't always work that way, and he hated sharing his personal dreams with his father (most of which usually revealed the fear he had of his dad), but Jal would force him to relay whatever dreams he had just in case one of them was important and useful.

but overall, that was a big driving factor behind why Jal had Khalan in such a tight hold. he never wanted a child in the first place, but this one happened to have a gift that could be utilized in a way to help Jal. on top of that, Khalan had always worked hard to make things a bit easier on his dad - so he was a source of free labor that was easy for Jal to take advantage of. he saw his son as nothing more than a tool, really.

when Khalan finally became of age to officially choose his own profession (18), he settled on cartography, having put in some practice with art and map-making in secret over the years. because of this choice, however, he also had to make the difficult decision to put his foot down and stand up to his dad in the process - making it clear that he was tired of being treated like an object and simply wanted to be his own person. moving away from home was the only thing Khalan could think to do in order to break himself out of the abusive hold that Jal had over him his entire life, and he was at a point where he was just tired of putting up with it.

this whole conversation didn't go over very well. the two got in a terrible fight over it, but in the end there wasn't much Jal could do to stop Khalan from leaving home. (he did instill a LOT of guilt tho that Khalan holds onto for a long time.)

so Khalan left the village to start charting the world around him. being completely unprepared for the dangers outside of the village, though, he was almost immediately ambushed by a Creeper the moment he stepped outside of the safety of the village walls.

enter Samara! that's when the two initially met, as she was the one to protect Khalan from danger ;o; since then, she stuck by his side in order to keep him safe on his travels, and obviously the two became really close friends.

from that point on tho, things only got worse between Khalan and Jal when he eventually did return home to clean up and finish the maps he started. he didn't exactly have anywhere else to go, so he showed up at the farm once he was finished traveling for a time... but Jal still held a bad grudge and ended up completely disowning Khalan after that encounter.

fortunately, the village cleric/leader ended up taking Khalan in for a time, and helped to get him a place of his own on the outskirts of the village where he could always return to after his travels.

so with that, Khalan now had his own house and was finally settling into the life he wanted, even though the sting of what happened with his father still deeply hurt him. but at least! he was finally his own person and could make his own choices, which was really all he had hoped for.

it was the next time he returned to the village after an expedition that he learned that something terrible had happened to Jal, and that whole zombie encounter took place. by this point, Khalan had only been living on his own for a few years (he was like 20 or 21 when this happened), so because of how recent his moving away was, he feels like his dad's death was a form of divine punishment for being "selfish" and leaving. this event really pushes Khalan into a bad mental state for some time, but with both Samara's comforting presence and the cleric's help, he eventually is able to pull himself out of it and move on.

that's roughly around the time when he meets the others in Drehmal tbh :0 it's not all that long after the zombie incident happened, which is why it's something that he still struggles with every so often in that story.

however, as far as the Jimmy Neutron AU is concerned, that takes place quite some time after all of this; when Khalan is around 28 years old. so he's had time to settle into the life he chose for himself before Jimmy shows up and completely pulls him out of his comfort zone (and changes his life entirely lol).

so yeah. that's about it. I've explained some of this before within his journal entries and some past art (which is where the links throughout this explanation lead to), but I figured it was probably time to actually share more about him with y'all ;o;

kudos to you if you managed to read all of this haha. hopefully you found it interesting even if it's pretty depressing ><;; my boy has had a rough life but he's still doing his best despite that :'0

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