Character Heist is a roleplay thread set in the Character Development Thread universe.
In a seemingly random string of arrests, characters from all reaches of the world find themselves in prison, in the same jail cell - where they meet with their mysterious benefactor by whose actions orchestrated their "framing", and is now calling upon them to help botch a franchise of Casinos. The Victorian(R) name will be on merger with Trinity, and our benefactor M. Kobayashi doesn't like that. He wants to sabotage the deal, stealing the goodwill diadem in trade which shall place at the grand opening of the Trinidad Casino in Las Vegas. How it is accomplished, our benefactor doesn't care. As long as you manage to ruin relations without tracing the act back to him.
Once you are released, you are given two weeks to prepare for the caper. During the wait, our benefactor will be helpful in providing a safehouse, with all the necessary resources you need in order to pull it off. (Don't go looking the gifthorse in the mouth, however.) You can write our characters practising research, schematics, logistics and the strategy of ruining the merger deal.
The rewards will be immeasurably great. Apart from taking the diadem, our benefactor allows us to keep all of the collected loot we find, to be split according to group decision. In case some people feel unwilling - our benefactor also has a nasty stick to provide motivation.
This shared story thread will draw upon the classic Heist genre, with the added twist of having characters from various worlds and stories participate, showing off their espionage skill sets. Our characters, being strangers to one another, must coordinate their efforts in order to successfully achieve the Casino heist.
The thread can be found here
. It began in July 2011 and ran for two months before reaching a conclusion.
Character Heist includes examples of:
- Author Filibuster: Like the person writing her at the time, Likho has strong opinions about ciphers.
- Can't Hold Her Liquor: Alice swears she has a high alcohol tolerance "for her weight," but given how little she weighs, that doesn't mean much. Has results both expected and otherwise.
- Comic Trio: The dynamic between Alice, Daisuke, and Rob was mentioned to fit the trope in this post. Taken to extreme levels as Daisuke and Alice both appear to be preteens while Robert is in his mid-twenties.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Alice is convinced the Massively Multiplayer Crossover is the result of some sort of "New Powers." Whether she's deluded or correct remains to be seen.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Alice refuses to kill Shinji, not because he's agreed to stop fighting but because his son Daisuke is present. And when snipers try and kill Daisuke, she, Viper, and Python enter a Tranquil Fury.
- Extremely Short Time Span: Averted. Most Character Development Threads take place in less than twelve hours, due to Webcomic Time. Heist however is aimed for at least two weeks.
- Frame-Up: The method the benefactor used to gather everyone up in prison to prepare for the heist.
- Freak Out: Grimm doesn't take the news of Shion attracting Gant's attention well.
- Gray-and-Gray Morality: On one side, there is a group of characters committing the heist, and another group hired as security against the heist. The former was gathered by a mysteriously shady employer, while the other employers are probably corrupt. Motives are mixed in all sides.
- More Dakka: The practicality of which is fiercely contested, mostly on Pragmatic Villainy grounds. Rob is the most adamantly anti-gun, though Yuki, Daisuke, and Alice support him.
- Only in It for the Money: Cain's loyalties are easily bought.
- Parental Substitute: Daisuke sees Alice as one, which is unfortunate, since Alice is... Alice.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: For the crime of trying to kill a child, Alice fed a sniper's soul to her "old friend" by flaying him alive.
- Punny Name: Rob is a thief.
- Shout-Out:
- The name of the Caligula, a neutral hotel where various characters have rooms, is a reference to the hotel in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Caligula's Palace, which in turn references Caesar's Palace in Real Life Las Vegas.
- Alice jokes that her friend Isaac should get the Pepsi logo tattooed on his shoulders.
- Superpower Lottery: Gant won it. With the exception of Alice's "old friend", all the other characters are quite reasonably terrified of Gant's power, though Alice is dubious about Gant's chances against the New Powers... assuming they exist.
- Villain Protagonist: The entire team, more or less, though some are Justified Criminals.
