Characters / Newsflesh

The main characters for the Newsflesh series.

The Masons

Michael and Stacy Mason were happily married with a small son named Phillip. Michael heard about zombies beginning to show up for real as the Rising began from some of his students. He took it seriously, and went home to his wife. Their quick action helped save a lot of lives in and around Berkeley California. Unfortunately, they also discovered their little boy was infected by the neighbor dogs, so Stacy had to shoot him to protect everyone.

Because of their quick thinking and action to keep people alive, Michael and Stacy both became extremely popular and successful bloggers. They adopted two babies orphaned during the Rising and raised them as their own — kind of. Shaun and Georgia were fed, clothed, and sheltered, but they were mainly used as props by Stacy and Michael to keep the public's eye on them and keep their fame growing.

Shaun and Georgia also grew up to be bloggers, but rather than staying in the shadow of their parents, created their own news site and blog staff. The younger Masons lived at home until the end of the Ryman blog tour, at which point they moved out.

The family as a whole:

• Badass Family: the entire family are licensed for guns (as required by law for the journalistic field), and have Crazy-Prepared tendencies as well.
• Character Blog: It's what they all do for a living.
• Disappeared Dad: Michael Mason is the "emotionally absent" sort. He unabashedly tries to cadge ratings from his children's successes.
• Dying as Yourself: A rule for the whole family. When an outbreak occurs, if you get trapped, always save the last bullet for yourself.
• Follow in My Footsteps: Shaun and Georgia are bloggers, taking after their parents, but not in the way their parents would prefer (obediently automatically giving their parents preferential treatment simply for adopting them). Becks and Shaun discuss this in Blackout, contrasting her refusal to do the same for her family, who are moneyed and don't do such gauche things as journalism.
• Meaningful Name: Masons build. These Masons built podcasts and blog sites and reputations.
• Missing Mom: Stacy Mason. Who shot her own biological child in the head when he converted, and then poses for photos at the school he used to go to. And if that's not bad enough? 82% of the affection Stacy shows her adopted children is only in public for posed shots. In Blackout, after being confronted by Shaun, and eventually going with her husband to rescue Alaric's sister Alisa, she realizes what a terrible parent she's been, and writes, "I wish I'd been a better mom when I had the chance."
• Parental Issues: George and Shaun were adopted by Stacy and Michael Mason partly to prove that "the living have won" the zombie war; but mainly for ratings points, and they know it.
• Parental Abandonment: George and Shaun were both orphans, adopted because their birth parents had died in the Rising; a situation which was true for many, many infants at that time.
• Theme Naming: George and Shaun were named by Michael and Stacy at the time of the adoption. It is unknown whether their birth names were known and abandoned, or if the toddlers were too little and/or too traumatized to be verbal and tell their names. But it is likely their doing so started the naming trend of naming children after zombie movie heroes.
• The Unfavorite: George and Shaun are both unfavorites as compared to the Masons' first child.

Michael & Stacy Mason

• Affably Evil: More like Affably Amoral. Michael talked Stacy into adopting children mainly so she wouldn't go all death wish manic after losing their son in the Rising. But both of them began treating the children less like beloved members of the family than walking, talking clickbait for their blogs.
• Heroic BSoD: In order it was Stacy and then Michael. Stacy's was first and worst because she's actually the one who pulled the trigger on their 4 year old child when he converted. Michael recovered first, and Stacy almost didn't until he got her into the field doing the first Irwin thing.
• Parental Neglect: Arguably, they didn't intend it when they adopted Shaun and Georgia, but they never bonded with their adopted children. Michael and Stacy gave them Zombie genre names for the fascination factor, and made sure they were fed, clothed, and always pretty for the camera. But Georgia figured out that the majority of affection shown them by their parents was only when they were on camera. They never allowed themselves to love Shaun and Georgia.
  • Replacement Goldfish: Played with. In ATPLH Michael and Stacy did begin with good intentions when they adopted toddler age Shaun and Georgia. Stacy actually said in so many words she did not want the world to think they were replacing Phillip. That's why they adopted two children, one a girl. But by the time of Feed it's obvious their damage outstripped their intentions.

Professor Michael Mason

• Cool Teacher: On hearing from his class concerns that the zombie uprising was actually happening, he took them seriously and dismissed them early. He saved a lot of lives that way, plus by getting on the air and broadcasting information as he got it during the Rising.
• Disappeared Dad: Present in body but absent in emotional support variation.
• Happily Married: Michael and Stacy.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: This is how he gets the attention of his class who are distracted and chattering amongst themselves about the possible Zombie influx.

Stacy Mason

• Insistent Terminology: When they decide to adopt, Stacy has a condition that she will not budge on:
  They'll think we want to replace Phillip. And we're not doing that.
• In Harm's Way: She is the world's first Irwin. She invented it in this 'verse.
• Happily Married: Stacy and Michael.
• Heroic BSoD: Stacy was the one who had to shoot her small son when he converted after a bite. It lasted nearly 3 years until Michael found a way to get her to come back into the world.
• Missing Mom: Present in body but absent in emotional support variation.
• Slasher Smile: Stacy was turning into the world's first Irwin, but beginning to lose herself in the danger.
• Survivor Guilt: Stacy's is so bad that she considers herself a murderer even after insisting on a trial and being acquitted for shooting her child when he turned during the Rising.
• Parental Neglect: Of Shaun and Georgia after their adoption. Arguably justified, in that it is generally considered something that would "break" a person to have to shoot a converted family member that early in the Rising.

Phillip Mason

"...Oggie?"

It's common knowledge that Phillip Mason, age 4, did not survive the Rising. His own mother had to shoot him when he converted after a bite from a zombified dog, making him the index case for animal-to-human transmission of Kellis-Amberlee.

• Baby Talk: he was a slow talker.
• Cheerful Child: he was as bubbly as any kid his age.

Shaun Mason

"Hey, George — check this out!"

Shaun Mason is the heartthrob of After The End Times. He's a good looking, wise-cracking Zombie-hunting Irwin. Fangirls kind of weird him out, and he's got more depth to him than he lets on.

• Born Lucky: Shaun Phillip Mason. So lucky he can have zombies grabbing at him but never become infected or start amplifying, even with hot blood nearby.
  • As of Deadline, we discover it is not as much luck as it originally appeared; Shaun is actually immune to KA.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Georgia and Shaun had a sexual relationship, revealed in Deadline. It's social incest, not genetic incest as they are not blood relations, and actually went to a geneticist to confirm they are not.
  • In Blackout, Georgia II, to prove herself to Shaun, refers to this as the "one thing we never wrote down." When Shaun calls her out on this, she kisses him in front of Becks and Mahir.
• Brother–Sister Team: George and Shaunwork together in all things, work or life.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A darker version of the usual trope from Deadline onwards, though he seems to be swinging back toward the normal use of the trope as of the end of Blackout.
• Celibate Hero: Shaun has an adoring harem of fangirls that would probably Fan Mob him if given the chance, but he doesn't have a publicly known significant other; and Georgia, who doesn't even pretend to have a publicly known Love Interest.
  • And then subverted in Deadline when Shaun beds Becks, then reveals his sexual relationship with Georgia by sleepily murmuring her name instead of Becks's immediately after.
• Counting to Three: George and Shaun's long honed habit for simultaneous blood testing. They do it on "two" because trouble remembering or difficulty speaking are both signs of conversion.
• Crazy-Prepared Shaun has several laws memorized. He has proficiencies in multiple types of zombie-killing weaponry and has since childhood. He can look at a building and determine in seconds how suited for a zombie siege it may be. He has maps memorized of the area around his home.
  • In Blackout, when an outbreak occurs in Dr. Abbey's new lab, instead of stocking up on ammo inside the armory, he grabs as many loaded pistols as he can stuff into his belt, to save time on reloading.
• Creepy Twins: Perceived this way as some even though they're Not Blood Siblings.
• Dead Guy Junior: Shaun was given Phillip as a middle name, after Michael and Stacy's deceased biological child.
• Guns Akimbo: or any other combination of weapons in both hands.
• Hallucinations: As a symptom of the Sanity Slippage began at the end of Feed, Shaun Mason suffers very significant ones in Deadline when his stress level rises: he goes from hearing Georgia in his head, to actually seeing her as if she were standing right there, and at times even feeling her fingers touching him: once in a crisis of confidence after hearing about how George might have survived getting infected, and again when he tries to find Buffy's wireless transmitter in their van.
  • In Blackout, these hallucinations occur more often, even right in the middle of a field situation.
    • Once he meets Georgia II in Blackout, the hallucinations take a nasty turn as the Imaginary!Georgia is threatened by the presence of the clone. At some level, Shaun realizes that while the clone George, who loves him as much as the original did could die or be killed, the Georgia in his head will be with him until he dies or is killed.
• Hearing Voices: After the events of Feed.
• Heroic BSoD: At the climax of Feed.
• Jerkass/Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Depends on where in which book, but Shaun's Jerkiness is to a degree an affectation, until his Sanity Slippage sets in. Then he's a genuine Jerk because his cope is failing badly and he can't concentrate or focus properly. He doesn't realize what he's doing most of the time, which is why the team stays with him instead of kicking his ass or having him committed.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Losing the love of his life severely damaged Shaun's sanity.
• Must Have Caffeine: Shaun likes coffee. He switches briefly to Coca-Cola, then back.
• Not Blood Siblings: Shaun and Georgia. They had it confirmed by a geneticist.
• Oblivious to Love: Not only is he immune to the attentions of women other than Georgia, as a rule he doesn't even notice them.
• Parental Abandonment: Shaun and Georgia are orphans, likely because their biological parents died or were zombified in the Rising.
• Percussive Therapy: Shaun's quite prone to punching walls, or the occasional teammate, when his stress level gets too high.
• Sanity Slippage: Shaun starts losing his sanity at the end of Feed, and makes baby steps toward getting it back in Blackout. He starts making more progress by the end of "Coming To You Live".
• Single-Target Sexuality: No one but Georgia for Shaun.
• Survivor Guilt: Shaun's aware of it but rejects the idea in favor of revenge.
  • In Blackout, Shaun comments on this trope:
  Shaun: Fuck survivor's guilt. I'm not supposed to be the guilty one here. The people who made me the last man standing... they're the guilty ones. And they're the ones who should be afraid.
• The Unfavorite: Shaun and Georgia were not able to hold a candle to the memory of Phillip.

Georgia Mason

Serious, determined, truth-seeking Newsie. Nigh-obsessively dedicated to the Truth at all costs. Georgia gets offended at the idea that her life is worth more than the truth. The same is true for the clone of Georgia Mason, as revealed in Blackout. Almost all tropes that apply to Georgia, also apply to Georgia II. For some examples of exceptions, though, there is a folder devoted to her below.

• Back from the Dead: After a fashion as of Deadline and Blackout.
• Brother–Sister Team: See Shaun's entry.
• Creepy Twins: Although they're actually six weeks apart in age and not actually related by blood, often perceived as such.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: As a result of Georgia's retinal Kellis-Amberlee condition, her pupils are permanently dialated. She sees better in the dark, must wear dark sunglasses at all times, and will go blind if exposed to too much light at one time. This is true for all people who have Kellis-Amberlee infections in their eyes.
• Glasses Pull: Georgia can only do this in low light conditions in the main. She does it to either get a good look at someone, or to maximize how creepy her constantly dialated eyes are.
• Must Have Caffeine: Georgia consumes amazing amounts of Coca-Cola, but they help with her retinal KA migraines.
• Not Blood Siblings: Georgia and Shaun checked.
• Parental Abandonment: Georgia and Shaun are both orphans, likely because their biological parents died or were zombified in the Rising.
• Single-Target Sexuality: No one but Shaun for Georgia.
• Survivor Guilt: Georgia undergoes this after Buffy's death at the hands of the bad guys in Feed.
• The Unfavorite: Shaun and Georgia were not able to hold a candle to the memory of Phillip.
• Tomboy: Georgia refuses to wear skirts and heels, disdaining them as impractical, unless she has to. And even then, hers are designed to her specifications.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Drink, actually. Georgia drinks Coke, as mentioned above.
• Unable to Cry: Anyone with sufficiently advanced retinal KA. Subverted horribly when Georgia goes into viral amplification and is finally able to cry even as she understands she's about to convert and still has to break the conspiracy story before she goes.
  • Could also be viewed as a straightforward use of the trope, rather than a subversion, in that a resolution in which the character in question is finally able to cry is described on the trope's page as not unusual.
  • The physical nature of the affliction, and of its resolution, may also make this more a case of Tears from a Stone.
  • Averted in Blackout with Georgia II, who's adjusting to the disappearance of her retinal KA, and is continually surprised whenever she starts tearing up.

SPOILER WARNING!! Open at your own risk!

Georgia Mason II

Georgia Mason (described here as Georgia Mason II) is a 97% accurate to reality clone of Georgia Mason created by the CDC. She was originally designated Subject 7c while she was grown in the lab. They meant to use her as a showroom model, so the rich could know they have safe options for life after amplification, but other agencies and Shaun had other ideas. She has 97% of the original Georgia's memories thanks to brain mapping, but is now leading her own life as her own person as of the end of Blackout. As such, she has developed enough that she has tropes that differentiate her from the original Georgia. Some of the tropes she shares with the original Georgia appear here because they apply differently or post Blackout.

• Brother–Sister Team: Does it count if she's a clone of his non-blood-related sister?
• Catapult Nightmare: George II has these due to experiences Georgia Prime never had — being held prisoner in a lab by scientists who cheerfully experimented on her and made it clear to her on repeated occasions she would spend her entire life there. Her subconscious supplies nastier details than what they actually put her through.
• Clone Angst: Subject 7c starts out with this, along with some understandable identity crisis issues, but starts to get over them when she meets the EIS agents and is informed of their plan to break her out. Near the end of Blackout, Shaun invokes this to get Georgia II to leave when he is asked by the CDC doctor to take their side. It turns out they were only pretending, however, so that Georgia II can make plans along with Dr. Shoji, Rick and Steve to rescue President Ryman's family and allow the rest of her team to leave the White House alive.
• Clones Are People, Too: Legally speaking, they're not. But Subject 7c is kind of a special case, one that a certain blogger is willing to defend with extreme prejudice.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: after the climax of "Coming To You Live", Georgia II contracts retinal Kellis-Amberlee.
• Deadly Nosebleed: Georgia begins having these in "Coming To You Live".
• Genetic Memory: Subverted. Georgia II's memories come from a copy of the electrical impulses in the original's (freshly zombiefied) brain that was applied to the clone brain. It's estimated her memories and personality are 97% accurate to the original. Earlier versions (at least those that survived to this stage) were nowhere near as accurate a copy, and/or went crazy on discovering they were a clone. Georgia II is the only one who figured it out on her own without sanity damage. She has accepted and made peace with the fact that she has a head full of memories she never actually experienced.
• Glasses Pull: Georgia II remembers this mannerism from her memories of the original. Now that she has retinal KA it's quite likely she will pick up the mannerism.
• Happily Married: Played with. She and Shaun pretend to be a married couple and show all the signs of living like one.
• Unable to Cry: Subverted until the events of "Coming To You Live". Georgia II had regular eyes because the scientists who cloned her could not force her to have a case of retinal Kellis-Amberlee without the clone converting. Once the surgery to save her is complete in this novella, however, because of her direct relation to Georgia Prime, she contracts retinal Kellis-Amberlee, and from that point on is no longer able to cry tears.
• Walking Spoiler: She's a clone of the original Georgia Mason. She's also not the only one. There were at least six iterations before her (with multiple individual clones per iteration), and there have been more clones after her, designed never to become conscious/aware.
• Walking Transplant: Some of the scientists who rescued her went on cloning her for research on reservoir conditions and other methods to fight Kellis-Amberlee. This comes in handy when Georgia needs an organ donor.

---

After the End Times

After the End Times is the news/blog site run by Georgia and Shaun Mason, and their partner Georgette Meissonier. They are part of the first generation to grow up after The Rising; as a result they disdain or find bogglesome many 20th Century traditions.

They were chosen by Senator Peter Ryman to embed into his campaign tour as he sought the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

They continued seeking news, action, and entertainment afterward, but remained embroiled in situations that precipitated from the Ryman campaign. Shaun and Georgia ran the site until the events of Blackout, and still contribute intermittently afterward.

Mahir Gowda takes charge after Blackout and heads up the News division (the Newsies), with Maggie in charge of the Fictionals after Buffy's death.

The Team As A Whole:

• Character Blog: The site itself is a news blog, so all characters blog.
• Crazy-Prepared: Multiple examples, one of which involves getting a grenade past White House security.
• Deadpan Snarker: The team tends to communicate this way with each other.
• Dying as Yourself: As with the Masons (and most people who must face an outbreak), the rule is to always save the last bullet for yourself.

Mahir Gowda (Newsie) Head of the News Division

Mahir, an Indian national who lives in England is head of the News division after the events of Feed.

• Arranged Marriage: to Nandini
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage: they're happy together, and as of the last entry in the series have a daughter.
• Asian and Nerdy: Mahir is a researcher as driven by the truth as Georgia is.
• Doomed Hometown: Technically, it's his entire homeland. India was ceded to the dead during the Rising and has yet to be reclaimed. It exists only on paper.
• Drowning My Sorrows: An email exchange between Mahir and Alaric while the latter is writing about the outbreak described in TDTDCTSAT suggests that Mahir took up drinking to deal with his grief after the events at the end of Feed.
• Happily Married: again, Nandini
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Mahir's wife Nandini, despite being Indian, bears an uncanny resemblance to Georgia Mason...which is part of why he agreed to marry her.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Tea.

Alaric Kwong (Newsie)

Alaric Kwong is the Newsie who writes "The Kwong Way of Things" for After The End Times.

• Asian and Nerdy: Alaric is Chinese and also driven by the truth, even when it makes him feel sick and dirty.
• Happily Married: to Maggie
  • Babies Ever After: As of "Coming To You Live", Maggie's pregnant with their first child.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: An email exchange with Mahir in TDTDCTSAT has him state he wants a shower and a stiff drink when he's done writing about the outbreak described in the book.
• Promotion to Parent: Now raising younger sister Alisa, who was forced to shoot their parents and brother during the second Rising.

Dave Novakowski (Irwin)

One of the Irwins for the site. He followed Shaun to Oakland somewhere between the events of Feed and Deadline, but did not survive an attack on their Oakland apartment.

• Heroic Sacrifice: In Oakland, he stays and hacks the lockdown of the building so everyone else can escape.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Played with. He manages to confess his feelings on recording and upload it before he dies in his heroic sacrifice.
• Running Gag: He is away on site for a blog series for a lot of Feed.

Rebecca "Becks" Atherton (Irwin)

Becks was born into an old money family, who disowned her when she decided to go into newsblogging, particularly as an action-chasing, zombie-taunting Irwin. She was head of the Action News division until the events of Blackout.

• Black Sheep: Becks is the scion of a rich old money family. They wanted her to go to Vassar, find a nice, well-bred husband, and settle down. When they found out she went into the news, and being an Irwin at that, they disowned her.
  "Mom? Dad? The next horrible thing I do in public is for you. I hope you choke on it."
  "Look, Ma! I'm abducting the president! Aren't you proud of your baby girl now?"
• Crazy-Prepared: Becks turned up with a sniper rifle even Shaun hadn't been aware she owned; and later, a semi-auto that was not legally cleared for private ownership.
  Becks: Better overprepared than totally screwed.
  • And she managed to get a grenade into the White House.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Taking out a mob of zombies with a grenade held over her head.
• Guns Akimbo: Common for most Irwins, but Becks in particular.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In Blackout.
• Hopeless Suitor: For Shaun due to his Single-Target Sexuality
• Poor Little Rich Kid: Becks is from a moneyed family, but is not well thought of by them because of her career choice.

• Tomboy: Becks is an Irwin, so it's practical dressing, but she's not entirely opposed to wearing dresses when trying to catch the eye of a guy she likes.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The fearless badass Irwin can face zombies without flinching, but bugs? That's her Squick.

Georgette "Buffy" Meissonier (Fictional)

Head of the Entertainment section until her death during the Ryman Campaign.

Buffy takes her name from the heroine of the Joss Whedon show Buffy the Vampire Slayer because she's a cute blonde. She handles the fiction division of After the End Times until the events of the Ryman campaign tour. She is the team's computer operator and superhacker. She is one of a few Americans still religious after the Rising, and holds a deep sorrow over Alaska, her home state, having been ceded to the dead. She made some unfortunate choices that cost her life and would have cost her job if she'd lived. Even after she is no longer present on the team, much of her equipment or programming is still present and helpful to the remaining members.

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer
• Cloudcuckoolander: Played with. Buffy's wacky and eccentric image is cultivated on purpose to distract and draw attention from the Newsies.
• Crazy-Prepared: In Blackout, Georgia II gains access to the After the End Times website through one of the back doors that Buffy had scattered throughout the Internet, in case a team member needed access but didn't have their equipment.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Buffy tends to dress in shiny, glittery things to hide recording devices and to draw attention away from the Newsies.
• The Mole/Unwitting Pawn: At first she's the former in what she considers to be small and relatively harmless ways but never realizes just how badly she's being used by The Conspiracy
• Playful Hacker: Buffy, who routinely augments the team's own recording devices by taking over cameras in hotels and conference halls.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Buffy is the girly girl to George and Becks' tomboy.

Magdalene "Maggie" Garcia (Fictional)

Head of the Entertainment section after Buffy's death in Feed.

Maggie worked under Buffy and took over the Fiction division of the site after Buffy's death. She is extremely wealthy so has one of the safest residential homes money can buy. She also is an animal lover and has a pack of teacup bulldogs (since full size bulldogs are an amplification risk). She is very generous with her time, her affections, and her money.

• Happily Married: to Alaric.
  • Babies Ever After: As of "Coming To You Live" she and Alaric are expecting their first child.
• Friend to All Living Things: Maggie has a literal pack of at least six rescue teacup bulldogs, and immediately takes to bestowing lovings and snuggles on the amplification-size Joe the mastiff, when everybody else is freaked out by the dog that could kill and zombify them all.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Her idea of a hideout while the team are in Seattle is a luxury hotel, this actually is a sensible choice as it would be hard to get past the security that the clientele of such a place would expect.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Magdalene Garcia. She is the heiress to one of the biggest and most powerful pharmaceutical companies in the world, and wields a lot of power because of it even though she's not actually in the pharmaceutical field. She lives in a giant farmhouse with state of the art security, and invites people over for horror movie parties on the regular because she's lonesome.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: to previous loves Buffy and Dave.
• Poor Little Rich Kid: Maggie is an extroverted, social party girl who loves company — in a world where most people are afraid to leave their homes. She is also able to throw amazing parties because she's beyond filthy rich due to her parents pharmaceutical company. Interestingly, she refers to herself as "never having been a 'poor little rich girl' in her blog". Her loneliness comes from the above situation, rather than her parents screwing up.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Plenty of rules simply do not apply when you drop the name "Magdalene Grace Garcia".
• Team Mom: She's the one with the money, the big house, and the tendency to look after the rest of the team.

Dr. Barbara "Doc" Tinney (Newsie)

Guest blogger.

• Heroic Sacrifice: She bought Shaun and Becks time to get safely out of the CDC.
• Hero of Another Story: She worked for the CDC before she ended up blogging for After the End Times.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: She had such a strong resemblance to Buffy that they just ran with it.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The team can't use her real name as she's really Dr. Kelly Connolly.

The Other George, Geo (Newsie)

Brought on board around Blackout. He's a newsie like Georgia Mason, but since she was here first and is called "George", he goes by "Geo" to avoid confusion.

The Brainpan

The Brainpan is run by The Monkey, a mysterious hacker and security type who can help with things like fake identification, for a price. Since what he does is highly illegal, he and his team are extremely paranoid, and extremely careful about who they allow to approach them. The Brainpan was effectively dissolved during the events of Blackout, but remnants remain.

The Brainpan As A Whole

• Only Known by Their Nickname: except when the Monkey is angry enough to remind someone of their past before they came to him.

The Monkey

The Monkey was the guy you go to when you need a foolproof fake ID. Not much is known about him except that he paid for plastic surgery to make himself look as generic as possible. He died in Blackout when the CDC raided his home.

• Un-person: The Monkey went to a lot and I mean a lot of trouble to scrub himself from the internet altogether, and to make his face completely generic.

The Fox

The Fox was another of the Monkey's girlfriends. She wears her hair in fox red and white, with a bit of black on the ends. She suffers from mental issues, which can make her manic. She was originally Elaine Oldenburg, a first-grade teacher, as we learn in The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell. In her earlier days, she was manic depressive. Since the events of TDTDCTSAT. she still is, but she has managed to separate the manic and the depressive to her old personality (Depressive) and The Fox (Manic). She prefers to live as the Fox these days due to the events of her earlier days, but is fully capable of drawing on the old personality's phenomenal skills with weapons even when the Fox persona is dominant. As of Please Do Not Taunt The Octopus, she joins Dr. Abbey's staff as their bodyguard.

• Air Vent Escape: She leads one of these in her flashback. More of a crawl space escape, but same basic idea.
• Ax-Crazy: To the point that most people consider her a danger to others around her when she is in Fox mode.
• Broken Bird: In The Day The Dead Came To Show And Tell, it's revealed that Elaine Oldenburg, the teacher who nearly lost her entire first-grade class in a devastating school outbreak, is Foxy, the dangerously insane girl from the Brainpan.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She's apparently verging on psychotic, as well as quite manic and more than a little childlike in behavior. She's also an extremely competent combatant.
• Death Wish: When she is not drugged to the gills, she believes she deserves to die.
• Guns Akimbo: The Fox is competent no matter which hand she shoots with — or both.
• Hero of Another Story: Literally. The Day the Dead Came To Show And Tell is a flashback story about who she was before she became The Fox and how she managed to save lives by not following the rules meant to save lives.
• Instant Allegiance Artifact: Drugs! The Fox is immediately and unshakably loyal to whoever can keep her sufficiently drugged up that the Fox stays dominant and her old personality stays dormant. If the drugs stop, her Loyalty will peter out and she'll go looking for a new supplier. As of PDNTTO that's Dr. Shannon Abbey and her genius chemist Tom.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: The Fox tends toward just being sort of hyper once she's no longer on The Monkey's arm.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In a flashback, she takes matters into her own hands when an outbreak occurs and all the failsafes have failed.
• Single-Target Sexuality: No one for Foxy but the Monkey, since he tinkered with her chemically to make her love him and no one else. This programming is so strong that even after his death, it holds.
  Foxy: No one touches me but the Monkey.
  Shaun: Foxy, the Monkey is dead.
  Foxy: I know. Sucks, don't it?
• Survivor's Guilt: After the events of TDTDCTSAT.
• That Woman Is Dead: Played with. After the events of TDTDCTSAT, Elaine Oldenburg sought out a way to intentionally stop being Elaine pretty much permanently. She has more or less succeeded. She is only Elaine when there are no drugs in her system.

The Cat

The Cat was one of the Monkey's girlfriends. Her real name is Jane, as we find out from a very angry Monkey, and from Alaric we know she's an ex of his (in any event, she names herself and asks the protagonists to tell Alaric hello when first encountered in Blackout) who prided herself on being cold. She disappeared during the raid on the Monkey's home and has not been seen or heard from since.

• Token Evil Teammate: The Cat took a side deal for cash against the Monkey's strict and explicit rules, resulting in the raid that destroyed the Brainpan and resulted in the Monkey's death.

The Wolf

The Wolf is a former member of The Monkey's team. She got kicked out for betraying the Monkey — fatally so as confirmed in Please Do Not Taunt The Octopus by Dr. Abbey's paid hacker, Tessa.

Medical Community

Dr. Alexander Kellis

Dr. Kellis was researching a cure for the common cold. A journalist put a spin on the piece that riled up some college-age would-be activists, who stormed the lab and released it into the air so everyone would have the cure, not just the rich.

• Driven to Suicide: Kellis had no idea that his engineered virus would react with the Amberlee cancer cure the way it did, but he was completely devastated and distraught by the brutalizing of his husband and the events caused by the releasing of his own virus.
• Happily Married: although his husband didn't enjoy being a science widower.
• Married to the Job: which is why his husband was a science widower.

Dr. Daniel Wells

was working on a cure for cancer, which worked. Unfortunately it also combined with the Kellis cure to create the Zombie virus that ended up named Kellis-Amberlee (after Wells' first successful patient).

• Driven to Suicide: As opposed to pills, alcohol, slitting his wrists, or self-inflicted gunshot, Wells let his zombified family tear him apart out of guilt for bringing the Amberlee virus home to them, which meant they converted without dying.

Dr. Shannon Abbey

Dr. Abbey used to work with the CDC until she saw their Death from Above method of handling outbreaks — even small ones — one of which killed her husband. Finding out that the CDC wasn't really working on a cure for Kellis-Amberlee drove her from angry to pretty much enraged. She left to do her own, illegal research on how to cure Kellis Amberlee, and is beginning to show some signs of success.

• First-Person Smartass: She's the protagonist in PDNTTO and there are large amounts of snarkyness in her narration.
• Mad Doctor: Dr. Abbey, who is mad in practically every sense of the word; driven so by the knowledge that the CDC found it cheaper to air-bomb a university campus with a majority of non-infected (including her husband) than to try containing the outbreak, and that they also are not really working toward finding a cure for Kellis-Amberlee but instead are tweaking it to make it worse and worse until they can cure it on their own terms. She has experimented on insects, arachnids, dogs, and an octopus. She is rather ticked at being called a mad scientist, at least in the insane sense because it's ableist and dismissive. It certainly applies when it comes to anger, though.
  • Shaun comments on this when he sees Dr. Abbey's dog Joe attacking the zombies when an outbreak occurs in her lab:
  Shaun: It probably says something about Dr. Abbey that she named her massive black English mastiff after her dead husband and used him for illegal medical experiments. I'm not sure what it says, exactly.
• Mad Scientist: One of many. Although she resents the implcation she's mentally ill as it's ableist.
• Off the Grid: In a manner of speaking. The CDC knows what she's doing and sends spies to look in on her. She ends up turning several of them, and making them members of her staff. But her illegal laboratory is deep in the woods of Oregon and doesn't officially exist.
• Science Hero: She may be whacky but she's one of the good guys.

The Center for Disease Control has risen to a truly astonishing level of power in the post-Rising world. They are the ones you call if there's a biohazard or an outbreak, and they're the ones who have significant control over the way Kellis-Amberlee research is handled.

Dr. William Matras

Using his small daughter's rainbows-and-unicorns blog, Dr. Matras posted a video telling the world the truth about the Rising while the media was still pumping out false information as ordered.

Dr. Joseph Wynne

• Gloating when Shaun and Becks confront him in Atlanta.

Dr. Kelly Connolly

Kelly worked under Dr. Wynne until he sent her to California to talk to the After the End Times team. She ends up joining the bloggers and having a change of heart about the profession she believed so noble. She is a granddaughter of Dr. William Matras.

Dr. Matthew Thomas

Caretaker of Subject 7c and all of the subjects who came before 7c.

Dr. Shaw/Dr. Danika Kimberley

• The Mole: Along with Dr. Gregory Lake, she's an EIS agent working undercover with the CDC.

Dr. Gregory Lake

The Politicians

Peter Ryman

Republican Senator who ran for, and as a result of the events in Feed, became President of the United States.

• Character Tics: Peter does the Picard Maneuver when stressed.
• Happily Married: to Emily.

Emily Ryman

Wife of Senator, then President Ryman

• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Like Georgia, Emily also has retinal Kellis-Amberlee, and the same caveats to protect her eyesight.
• Mama Bear: Protective of not only her own children but of the After the End Times blogger kids.

David Tate

Originally the opponent for Senator Ryman. Becomes his running mate after losing the nomination. Highly conservative and religious. Also sexist.

• Evil Gloating: on revealing what he was doing, and why.
• Evil Laugh: on trying to get out as a martyr.
• The Fundamentalist: deeply religious and believes the Rising is God's punishment for straying.

Rick Cousins

Originally a Newsie who jumps from covering Congresswoman Kirsten Wagman's Presidential campaign to joining the Ryman team just before the national convention. Became running mate to Senator Ryman and eventually Vice President. Lost his son to Kellis-Amberlee and his wife to suicide shortly thereafter. Or so he thinks, until he learns of the pattern of suspiciously high death rates of a variety of causes among reservoir KA patients, which his wife was.

• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Adopts/is adopted by a cat who survived the cleanup at the Ryman ranch, naming her Lois. Unfortunately for both, Lois does not survive the book.
• Woobie: He loses his son and wife before we even meet him. Then he loses two good friends and his cat within the first book. Later, he finds out his wife was actually murdered, has to cope with President Ryman being blackmailed by the CDC, and sees multiple failures at resurrecting Georgia by cloning before they finally get Subject 7c.

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Feedback

Ben Ross: Newsie.

• Black Dude Dies First: totally averted!
• Citizenship Marriage: with Ash
• Rescue Romance: An oddly platonic version—he came to Ash's rescue in Ireland despite barely knowing her online, and they became best friends. He later married her to get her American citizenship.

Aislinn "Ash" North: Irwin

• Citizenship Marriage: with Ben to get her out of Ireland, where she'd been committed for being a lesbian Irwin.
• Hide Your Gays: Played with. She's in a monogamous relationship with Audrey Wen, though they play it to the public that Audrey is shared in a polyamorous threesome with Ben, who is not involved sexually with either woman.
• Lipstick Lesbian: goes into the field in custom sundresses (as an Irwin) to get more hits.
• {Oireland}: Played with. Ash uses people's stereotypical beliefs about her homeland to her advantage when it suits her.
• Red-Headed Hero: She's the central character and protagonist in Feedback.
• Rescue Romance: see above
• Sherlock Scan: Is especially good at noticing traps.

Audrey Liquang Wen: Fictional

• Author Avatar / Self-Insert Fic: Rather than poetry or tragic romance stories her blog contains stories about a hard boiled pre rising female Asian American detective and her red headed lover.
• Hide Your Gays: See above with Ash.
• Mysterious Past: Former doctor for the CDC and EIS.

Mat Newson: Newsie/makeup/fashion blogger..

• Ambiguous Gender: Genderfluid, usually goes by "their" unless otherwise in a different mood.