Line #51 Characters/Takotsubo


1	The character sheet for ''[[Literature/{{Takotsubo}} Takotsubo: The story of a superhero.]]''
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3	[[foldercontrol]]
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5	[[folder: Humans]]
6	!!!Cord Cai / The Tin Man
7	The Chinese-American protagonist of the story, a troubled young man whose fiance's death drives him to start the East 13 gang as the Tin Man.
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9	* ArcWords: He repeats [[ThisIsMyStory his name and how Roland died]] several times throughout the prologue. ''"My name is Cord Cai. My fiance got shot for his car, and nobody gave a fuck except me."''
10	* AffectionateNickname: He likes [[TheNicknamer giving people nicknames]]; Blake is "ComicBook/CaptainAmerica / Cap," and Juliana is "[[Theatre/{{Wicked}} Elphaba]] / Elphie." For his part, Roland calls him "shug" a lot.
11	* AlliterativeName: PlayedWith. The script's notes state that ''Americans'' pronounce Cord's name as if it's alliterative, but traditional Mandarin speakers would pronounce it as "Cord Tsai."
12	* BerserkButton: He hates being MistakenForGay because he's ''bisexual.'' Even when mock-flirting with Detective Blake, he remarks that Blake gets two more mistakes of accidentally calling him gay since the first time was clearly a joke.
13	* CosmicPlaything: Cord's last monologue in the prologue implies that he thinks this. He says the city "eats you" if you try too hard to get out.
14	* DeadpanSnarker: He spends the ''Bridge-Building'' stories snarking the shit out of everything, and is also very snarky in the script proper.
15	* DespairEventHorizon: Rockets alllll the way past this in both ''Gunsmoke'' and the script's prologue.
16	* EqualOpportunityEvil: Equal Opportunity Gangster: Cord tries to keep Juliana from joining East 13 not because she's a woman, but because she's ''Asian'' and [[StopBeingStereotypical he doesn't want her to be a stereotype]] [[InternalizedCategorism like he is.]] He gives up and takes her on because [[GenreSavvy he knows she's just going to keep getting herself in trouble,]] and he might as well watch her. He also says if people call her names because of her magic, she should punch them in the face.
17	* FreakyFashionMildMind: Cord is very nice (if snarky) and enjoys nicknaming people. As the Tin Man, he wears pounds of jewelry, punk spikes, and a giant white great-coat. However...
18	* GoodIsNotSoft: He's not above roughing a guy up and is notorious for [[BestServedCold shooting a man in the head.]]
19	* HarmfulToMinors: He's in his early twenties and his life is a long string of hardships since eight years old.
20	* InternalizedCategorism: His characterization runs on this. In ''Gunsmoke,'' Cord's narrative mentions that he and Roland are the "Asian not-gangsters-anymore," and he calls himself a failure a lot.
21	** StopBeingStereotypical: InvokedTrope. Cord is extremely expressive, which is an aversion of the InscrutableOriental stereotype. Then Cord and Roland used to be gangsters, but [[TheAtoner they tried to go clean]]. [[BreakTheCutie Key word is "tried."]]
22	** In Takotsubo's prologue, he calls himself a fag despite being bisexual. According to him, everyone ''else'' does it. In ''Bridge-Building,'' he mentions that being bisexual means [[NoBisexuals "'gay' to straight people and 'straight' to gay people."]]
23	** Cord is artistic, but views his talents as useless. He designed his broken-heart chest tattoo in ''Gunsmoke,'' which is on the poster's concept. When Thad tells him that he has a gift with language, Cord retorts that nobody wants him to do poetry unless he fits an Asian stereotype, and he'll never get anywhere with it.
24	* InterruptedSuicide: He tries to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, but he gets stopped by a cop. [[ShownTheirWork The Golden Gate is infamous for being a suicide hotspot.]]
25	* NiceGuy: Sure, he's in a gang, but [[NeighborhoodFriendlyGangsters they're basically a second police force.]] Of course, this is also why Roland's death [[BreakTheCutie hits him so hard.]]
26	* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Cord's monologues are noted by Thad [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall to be unusually long and eloquent.]] Especially since he just got admitted for a ''suicide attempt.''
27	* ShroudedInMyth: Early in the story, people say the Tin Man broke someone's neck and cursed Harry Lamont's house.
28	* TinMan: InvokedTrope. The open, expressive Cord takes "Tin Man" from ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' as his alias, wears a giant red heart necklace, and uses broken-hearts as his gang's tags.
29	* TattooAsCharacterType: In Gunsmoke, there's a massive tribal broken heart dominating his chest. It plays into the Asian-gangster stereotype, but it's also an obvious sign of how much he ''hurts'' after Roland dies. Broken hearts also become East 13's gang sign.
30	** When he helps Thad get his stuff back from a mugger, [[TheCoatsAreOff he makes a show of taking off his jacket]] to reveal an accumulated sleeve of hearts, one partial sleeve, and several neck tattoos, which [[OhCrap instantly freaks the mugger out.]] Cord later mentions [[{{Profiling}} he can't wear short sleeves anymore without getting stopped by police.]]
31	* TragicVillain: Cord frequently tells people that he's "not good enough for anything else." He only shoots Harry Lamont because the police force fucked up, and he doesn't even care about getting put in jail for murder.
32	-->'''Cord:''' I was going there anyway! At least now it's fair!
33	* TwoferTokenMinority: A bisexual Chinese-American.
34	* WrongGenreSavvy: The author mentions that while Cord ''thinks'' he's a villain due to InternalizedCategorism, he ''acts'' heroic and the story is how he moves past his self-hate to acknowledge that he's a superhero.
35	* YankTheDogsChain: His parents were put in prison when he was eight, he was constantly bullied and ended up in street gangs to cope with it, and then he and Roland got engaged and try to go clean. They graduate high school... [[BreakTheCutie and then they get carjacked.]]
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37	!!!Juliana Juarez / The Witch
38	A Filipino-American young woman who calls the Tin Man for help when a guy follows her on the way home, setting up the prologue's flashback, then joins East 13 as their WickedWitch after her parents get killed in a drive-by.
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40	* ConspicuousGloves: She wears them because she can't control her psychometry. If she touches people, it knocks them out.
41	* DeadpanSnarker: She mockingly says "MeLoveYouLongTime" to a random guy who grabbed her hair. [[OhCrap She accidentally makes him mad.]]
42	* DeathByOriginStory: After the prologue, her parents get killed in a drive-by shooting from the Gatewalkers.
43	* FantasticRacism: Her powers aren't even that dangerous, but she didn't get adopted until she was thirteen.
44	* GenreSavvy: She knows that the Tin Man is a good person.
45	* IWillFindYou: She's trying to find the South Wind.
46	* TheNapoleon: Constantly referred to as tiny, but mouths off when she shouldn't and tries to beat up the gangsters that killed her parents.
47	* OrphansOrdeal: She was shuttled around the foster-care system until she was thirteen because "nobody wants a kid with powers."
48	* PsychicPowers: She has psychometry and sees spirits, such as the Queen of Names and Lady Fury. [[PowerIncontinence She can't turn off her psychometry, though.]]
49	* TwoferTokenMinority: A Filipino-American mage.
50	* WickedWitch: InvokedTrope. She wore an all-black outfit when she beat up the Gatewalkers for killing her parents, and when they found out she had magic, they immediately left her alone. She later becomes East 13's "witch" because all the black reminded Cord of [[Literature/{{Wicked}} Elphaba.]]
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52	!!!Martel Alvarez
53	Juliana's Mexican-American foster-brother and a weather-mage.
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55	* FantasticRacism: He was born with weather-magic, wound up in foster-care, and he scared people at ten years old by accidentally burning a blanket.
56	* GratuitousSpanish: Uses several Spanish phrases.
57	* OrphansOrdeal: It's heavily implied that he aged out of the foster-care system because nobody wanted him.
58	* TwoferTokenMinority: A Latino weather-mage.
59	* WeatherManipulation: Caused a lot of problems when he was growing up in foster-care.
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61	!!!Officer Henderson
62	A black police officer. She worked on Cord's case when Roland was murdered, and is currently working with East 13. Her new partner is Detective Blake, replacing her former partner Gerald.
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64	* ByTheBookCop: InvertedTrope. Henderson is the older partner who follows street rules out of respect, while Blake is younger and tries to insist on following police rules due to naivete. This is also implied to be because he's white, since Henderson is a person of color and has a solid knowledge of street law.
65	* TheCommissionerGordon: To the Tin Man and East 13.
66	* GotMeDoingIt: She accidentally calls Blake "Cap" after hearing the Tin Man do it so gleefully.
67	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Respects the normal law and gives Blake a crash-course on street law.
68	* TwoferTokenMinority: A black female cop.
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70	!!!Detective Blake
71	A new police officer in Oakland, playfully nicknamed "ComicBook/CaptainAmerica" by the Tin Man.
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73	* DeadpanSnarker: Glinda remarks that he's fine with Cord's [[GayBravado Bisexual Bravado]]. Blake points out that he's not insecure enough to piss off a ''gangster'' just because he's afraid of "catching the gay."
74	* FairCop: Cord calls him "Cap" because he's pretty.
75	* NaiveNewcomer: He doesn't know the rules in Oakland yet.
76	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure
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78	[[/folder]]
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80	[[folder: Spirits]]
81	!!!Roland Fujii
82	Cord's Japanese-American fiance, who was shot in a botched carjacking by Harry Lamont.
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84	* AffectionateNickname: He calls Cord "shug" ("sugar").
85	* NervesOfSteel: Roland laughs in Lamont's face when he and Cord are getting carjacked, because Lamont clearly doesn't have the nerve to actually shoot them. When Lamont finally manages to, Roland not only slashes him with his knife, he laughs that Lamont isn't used to fighting.
86	* NeverBringAKnifeToAGunfight: PlayedWith. Roland has a knife and Harry Lamont has a gun, but Roland basically ''taunts'' him into shooting, then shoves through the pain and cuts Lamont, who runs away immediately. Lamont technically "wins" since he killed Roland, but he didn't even manage to steal the car and he's clearly outclassed by [[MuggingTheMonster two former gangsters.]] And later on, a grieving Cord tracks Lamont down and [[BestServedCold shoots him execution-style.]]
87	* PlotTriggeringDeath: Thanks to the story being Cord's SuperheroOrigin.
88	* PostHumousCharacter: Literally. He appears as a spirit after his death, [[WalkingShirtlessScene half-dressed in filmy white gauze.]] He shows up in the prologue when Cord's getting dragged off the Golden Gate Bridge, and he still lives in his and Cord's abandoned house.
89	* TwoferTokenMinority: An LGBT Japanese-American.
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91	!!!The Four Winds
92	Four Asian-appearing men who are individually called the East, West, North, and South Winds.
93	* BreakingTheFourthWall: They perform set-changes, help with costumes, and act in the play.
94	* TattooAsCharacterType: The South Wind is Filipino and has indigenous tattoos.
95	* IWillFindYou: The South Wind knows Juliana's looking for him, but can't seem to talk to her.
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97	!!!The Queen of Names
98	A dark-skinned woman who watches over foster-care children. She has dozens of names tattooed in white ink from her hands to her face.
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100	* AmbiguouslyBrown: Referred to as dark-skinned, and three characters address her in Spanish.
101	* FreakyFashionMildMind: Her face and arms are tattooed with white names. [[NiceGirl She watches foster-children.]]
102	* GoodIsNotDumb: She suspected immediately that Juliana was getting into gang trouble, so she called the Tin Man.
103	* GratuitousSpanish: Spanish and Filipino foster-children call her "La Reyna/Reina de los Nombres," which is the Spanish translation for "the Queen of Names." Martel also speaks Spanish when performing the ritual offering to her.
104	* [[NiceGuy Nice Girl:]] Cord said that he couldn't refuse a spirit asking for help, especially a NICE one.
105	* TattooAsCharacterType: She has names in white ink from her hands to her face, and wears a sleeveless dress to show them accordingly.
106	* TheXOfY: The Queen of Names.
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108	!!! Lady Fury
109	An Asian-appearing woman who watches over foster-children in a more physical way than the Queen of Names.
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111	* ActionGirl: She's "built like a wall" and wears boxing hand-wraps. She [[MamaBear beats up child-abusers.]]
112	* HandwrapsOfAwesome: She wears them.
113	* MamaBear: She beats up child-abusers, keeps Juliana from trying to go inside her parents' house after they were targeted in a drive-by, and goes with her to beat up the Gatewalkers for killing Juliana's foster-parents. The Gatewalkers also say that she curses people.
114	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "Lady Fury" isn't the most soothing name around.
115	* NumberTwo: To the Queen of Names.
116	* RestrainingBolt: She can only curse the attackers of foster-children if the children are under eighteen. For adults, [[BroughtDownToBadass she's "limited" to beating people up.]]
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Context Characters / Takotsubo