History Characters / TheFamiliar

* NiceHat: His cobalt trilby hat is his signature style. Other characters sometimes remark upon it, such as Planski complimenting him with it when he meets her.

* PinkHeroine: She's the only one who can be considered the protagonist amongst the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. She seems to have some supernatural abilities (the reason the cat came to her in Volume 1). And her signature colour is pink--apart from the author's choice to make her page tips pink, she also has a pink phone and whenever what she's wearing is described, it's pink.

* AdultFear: Astair is constantly worrying that her daughter Xanther will have another epileptic seizure. Xanther has been on medication but that hasn't been effective, and she last had a protracted seizure at her own father's funeral. Plus, Astair worries about Xanther's being bullied and not doing well in several schools. And then her family starts to have serious financial troubles as well, which cause a lot of anxiety for her.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: The books are rendered through them.

* ABoyAndHisX: In this case, a girl and her cat is the most important storyline in the book series. Her finding the cat sets a lot of things in motion and changes her family's lives.

* LikeIsLikeAComma: She speaks in "Valley Girl" / "Tean Speak", most notably ''heavily'' and superfluously using the word "like". She isn't a ValleyGirl though, because her character is the complete opposite of the ditzy nature of that stereotype. In Volume 2 it's explained that she adopted this manner of speech as a way to have more time to collect her thoughts while speaking, and to better fit in with her peers.

* ValleyGirl: Subverted because her character is the complete opposite of the ditzy nature of this stereotype. However, she certainly speaks like one, using lots of "you know,"'s and ",like,"'s, and ending sentences with a question mark when they aren't questions. Maybe this manner of speech is something she adopted to try to fit in better with her peers?

%% Use the following to correctly spell the names of "Isandorno", "Lutero", "Ozgur Yildirim" and "Teyo":

%% Téyo

%% As per the spelling conventions within the books, the names of jingjing and tian li are spelled uncapitalized here, as well as all of their quotes.

* RecoveredAddict: During Volume 01, he's been clean off drugs for four years. Subverted in Volume 02, when he relapses.

* TheGhost: During Volume 01 and Volume 02 at least, is often mentioned by other characters, but doesn't appear.

* NoFourthWall: For them, anyway. [[spoiler:by book 4, they appear to be able to leak information in-universe via Xanther and jingjing.]]

* Cute Kitten: Inverted. Everybody except Xanther feels something is very "off" or creepy about it. And then the vet reveals that, despite looking like a kitten from the outside, it is actually very old, something he can't explain. It seems to influence people close to it supernaturally (tian li's healing powers) and physically (Xanther getting sick when the kitten is not near).

* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: Non-romantic or even human love, but pet love version. Xanther loves him and desperately wants to take care of him. Her parents however react negatively towards the cat and Xanther's relationship with him: Anwar and Astair find him creepy and worry that he has a bad effect on Xanther.

* AllWitchesHaveCats: She's not a witch in the strict sense, but rather a healer who works using faith healing and folk remedies. During the time she had the cat however, she possibly also had supernatural powers, which strongly [[spoiler:decreased when the cat disappeared]]).

A white cat found in a sewage on the streets of Los Angeles by Xanther, and taken home with her to care for him. To everyone except Xanther, he gives the shivers and creeps out somehow. Was tian li's cat before getting to Xanther.

* {{Prank}}: He pulls a prank on Anwar in the beginning, resulting in Anwar's family's phone and e-mail numbers being outed on the internet and them being bombarded with calls and texts.

A friend of Anwar and also a computer programmer. When Anwar doesn't succeed in debugging a program, Mefisto is the first person Anwar thinks of asking for help from, as apparently Mefisto is one of the best programmers. Mefisto pulls a prank on Anwar in the beginning that results in Anwar's family's phone and e-mail numbers being outed on the internet and them being bombarded with calls and texts; according to Mefisto, the prank was never supposed to go that far.

* GreenEyedMonster: Bobby still gets insecure and uncomfortable when Cas sees Deakin / Merlin, because she slept with Deakin once; that was 40 years ago though. Cas even mentions the Trope by name once when referring to him in her narration.

---

** Cas' friends who are involved with the Orbs too are known as The Sorcerer, [[GreekMythology Artemis]], [[Myth/KingArthur Merlin]], [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Treebeard]], etc.

! The nine narrators

!! Xanther Ibrahim
!!! Color code: Pink

!! Anwar Ibrahim
!!! Color code: Green

!! Astair Ibrahim
!!! Color code: Orange

!! Luther / Lutéro Perez
!!! Color code: Black

!! Oz / Özgür Yıldırım
!!! Color code: Grey

!! Shnorkh Zildjian
!!! Color code: Brown

!! The Wizard / Cas / Catherine Aa’ala Stern
!!! Color code: Red

!! Isandòrno
!!! Color code: Yellow

!! jingjing
!!! Color code: Blue

! Others

!! The [=NarCons=]
!!! Color code: None

!! Freya and Shasti

!! Mefisto Dazine

!! Hopi

!! Mnatsangan

!! Bobby

!! tian li

! Other characters

* ReluctantMadScientist: He is apparently really good at debugging some of the esoteric code Mephisto brings him. He doesn't think a lot about the implications - it literally pays the bills.

%% Use the following to correctly spell the names of Isandorno, Lutero and Ozgur:

* ImmigrantParents: Her father Anwar was born and raised in Egypt. He has lived in the U.S. for a long time now, and while his narrative reveals that some of his thoughts still occur in Arabic, he seems to be more an American than an Egyptian culturally.

* ValleyGirl: Subverted because her character is the complete opposite of the ditzy nature of this stereotype. However, she certainly speaks like one, using lots of "you know,"'s and ",like,"'s, and ending sentences with a question mark when they aren't questions. Maybe this manner of speech is something she adopted to fit better in with her peers?

* {{Asexuality}}: Hasn't slept with her husband Anwar for a long time (implied to be because of just not having libido anymore) and pointedly avoids the subject of sex when her friend Taymor brings it up. This seems to be something relatively recent for her though - she has had meaningful sexual and romantic relationships with at least Dov and Anwar (plus, a woman, twice, long ago).

* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: He has fighting dogs, who all have, like it is described, "torn ears, snouts scarred, cloudy eyes, some eyes just gone, testify to a life of combat". He also uses these dogs to purposefully let them kill cats he comes across. He doesn't treat other humans much better than he does animals--he often purposefully humiliates people, is in a gang, and is the most violent and criminal of the narrators.
* {{Symbolism}}: He appears to [[Literature/TheFourGospels walk on water]] at the end of the first book. He also spreads his arms out in a manner that reminds of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} when He was crucified, during it. Not to mention his [[NamesTheSame name's the same]] as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther Martin Luther]]'s, the founder of Protestantism.

** Cas' friends who are involved with the Orbs too are known as The Sorcerer (who might or might not really be (called) Mefisto, from Anwar's storyline), [[GreekMythology Artemis]], [[Myth/KingArthur Merlin]], [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Treebeard]], etc.

* CunningLinguist: jingjing speaks fluent Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian and Singlish / English. This trait also reflects in how his narration is written - mostly Singlish with a lot of Mandarin and sometimes Russian interjected. An important aspect of his job as assistant to tian li is act as her translator.

A boy, seemingly of Native American descent, who is trying to get into Luther's gang in Volume 1. He lives with his mother, and is naive.

* DudeLooksLikeALady: ''Possibly''. He's only described through Luther's narrative, which consistently paints him as girly and describes how his hands are "so delicate"; there has been debate in the fandom this might be a case of HoYay by Luther though.

* AllWitchesHaveCats: She's not a witch in the strict sense, but rather a healer who works using faith healing and folk remedies. During the time she had the cat however, she possibly also had supernatural powers (which strongly decreased [[spoiler:when the cat disappeared]]).

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: She really ''does'' seem to heal people, but it's unclear whether that happens due to real supernatural powers, or because she's good at making people believe in it (as in, placebo effect).

!! Isandòrno
!!! Color code: Yellow

%% As per the spelling conventions within the books, the name of jingjing is spelled uncapitalized here, as well as all of his quotes.

* CunningLinguist: jingjing speaks fluent Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian and Singlish / English. This trait also reflects in how his narration is written - mostly Singlish with a lot of Mandarin and sometimes Russian interjected. An important aspect of his job as assistant to Tian Li is act as her translator.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: She really ''does'' seem to heal people, but it's unclear whether that happens due to real supernatural powers, or because people just believe so.

* {{Symbolism}}: He appears to [[TheBible walk on water]] at the end of the first book. He also spreads his arms out in a manner that reminds of {{Jesus}} when He was crucified, during it. Not to mention his [[NamesTheSame name's the same]] as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther Martin Luther]]'s, the founder of Protestantism.

An older lady living in Singapore, who works as healer. Four years ago she took in jingjing to work for her as her assistant and to live with her. She has a cat that's almost always sitting on her shoulder and that creeps jingjing out. Her neighbors from her apartment building gossip about her, saying something is "off" about her, but that seems to be the effect of her cat--she is benevolent herself.

!! Bobby

Cas' / The Wizard's husband, aged 77. He has thick white hair and a beard and is physically more fit than Cas. He has been married to her for decades. He is an astronomer with a degree from Berkeley.

* GreenEyedMonster: Bobby still gets insecure and uncomfortable when Cas sees Deakin / Merlin, because she slept with Deakin once; that was 40 years ago though. Cas even mentions the Trope by name once when referring to him in her narration.

* DudeLooksLikeALady: ''Possibly''. He's only described through Luther's narrative, which consistently paints him as girly and describes how his hands are so "delicate"; there has been debate in the fandom this might be a case of HoYay by Luther though.

!! Mefisto Dazine

A friend of Anwar and also a computer programmer. When Anwar doesn't succeed in debugging a program, Mefisto is the first person Anwar thinks of asking for help from, as apparently Mefisto is one of the best programmers. Mefisto pulls a prank on Anwar in the beginning that results in Anwar's family's phone and e-mail numbers being outed on the internet and them being bombarded with calls and texts; according to Mefisto, the prank was never supposed to go that far.