The characters of The City We Became and The World We Make. Most of them are Genius Loci. They can channel "constructs" based on things significant to the culture of their boroughs and their personalities, which they use to fight the Enemy.
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City avatars generally
- All of the Other Reindeer: Established cities aren't exactly welcoming of new cities, whom they tend to perceive as too hopelessly naive to bother with for their first few hundred years of existence. New York City gets a lot of hostility for speaking up about the Enemy's changing tactics: not just for speaking an inconvenient truth, but for doing so right after being born.
- The Ageless: The oldest city in the series is Faiyum, who Padmini notes looks very young... and who is at least 2000 years old (since he was ruled by a pharaoh before becoming a city). It's never stated outright, but cities seem to stay the same age they were when they became avatars (since e.g. Istanbul is an older man).
- The Chosen Many: It's unclear exactly how many cities there are; apparently a few dozen living, plus some number of dead cities.
- Dimensional Traveler: You can get to other dimensions from macrospace, though we only see Padmini really taking advantage of that to go exploring.
- Eating Optional: Avatars can eat, but they can also forego food indefinitely. Biological needs other than food and sleep are not addressed and so are presumably unchanged from human normal—reinforced when Padmini discovers that she definitely still needs to breathe.
- Extradimensional Shortcut: There's a dimension accessible only to cities called macrospace, and moving through it is called macrostepping. There are places only accessible by macrostepping, like Atlantis. Sometimes it's not "safe" to move through macrospace, in which case avatars can travel through ordinary space—Hong states this is the case in the first book, though what this means is left unclear because Hong isn't inclined to explain himself.
- Genius Loci: An avatar doesn't just represent their city, they are the city. An avatar's human preferences can and do shape the city's preferences, and vice versa—did the Istanbul avatar's love of cats influence his city's, or the other way around?
- Ideal Illness Immunity: Avatars can't get or transmit illnesses or radiation. Should their city succumb to plague or radiation, though, the death of the city itself will kill the avatar—but not the illness or radiation directly.
- Living a Double Life: Most of New York's avatars keep their jobs and lives more or less intact, and fold in their avatar responsibilities as they can. Other cities we see glimpses of seem to be doing the same: Istanbul has a daily routine, Tokyo has a job, etc.
- Long-Lived: Avatars live as long as their cities do, die only when the city does, and don't appear to age.
- Magic Enhancement: How avatars get to be avatars. Padmini notes that city metaphysics aren't magic magic so much as a science no one understands yet, but for their purposes it might as well be magic.
- Man of the City: Avatars genuinely love their cities—it's at least part of why they're chosen—so they tend to fall into Man (or Woman) Of The City roles and champion their city's unique strengths.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: An avatar in their own city is at the heart of their power and can channel city magic to e.g. heal broken bones within seconds. An avatar outside their city is far more vulnerable.
- Psychic Radar: "Cities know their own, even before they're cities." Avatars can recognize other avatars (and know which cities they represent) pretty much instantly. This is true even if the city hasn't quite emerged yet—other avatars (and future avatars) will be able to recognize an incipient avatar. Manny and his mom (avatar and future avatar, respectively) recognize Washington DC's incipient avatar.
- Pro-Human Transhuman: Avatars start out as ordinary humans. Since a living city is an emergent property of human activity, one of an avatar's main duties is protecting their city's other residents.
- The Sleepless: Avatars can forego sleep indefinitely; Tokyo says she hasn't slept in ten years.
- Wainscot Society: The larger community of cities comes into focus in the second book.
- Was Once a Man: A city avatar is a complex multidimensional entity that started out as a human being. It's an open question how human avatars remain, and it's stated that a city avatar is perhaps closer to an Transhuman Abomination than to an ordinary human.
- With Friends Like These...: As a whole, cities seem to get along like wet cats, as might be expected of people who exercise a tremendous amount of autonomy with no oversight for a very long time: it seems to be very easy to get very used to having things one's own way.
New York City
Neek (primary avatar, for New York City as a whole)
A young queer Black man who's been living on the streets for a long time. Artistic and creative, and prideful and stubborn. In the second book, he takes the name "Neek" (NYC spoken phonetically).
Tropes:
- Aloof Leader, Affable Subordinate: His initial dynamic with Manny. Manny feels compelled to "serve" Neek, and even though Neek rejects this as an unequal and unethical relationship given Manny's amnesia, Manny remains affable and good at communicating, while Neek is much more introverted. The other avatars observe that he dislikes being seen as the leader of the group.
- Genius Loci: While all of the avatars are this, it becomes clear that Neek is somehow more the city of New York than the rest of them.
- Genius Bruiser: Padmini observes that Neek appears to be a polymath, despite his deprived upbringing, and Bronca considers him an artistic genius. The Woman In White seems to fear him, because he's one of the few avatars to actually hurt her during their battle. He also seems to be able to just imagine things at her instead of needing a construct as the other New York avatars do.
- Had to Be Sharp: Neek doesn't seem particularly inclined towards violence, but because of his past he can be ruthless and strong when he needs to be.
- Mad Artist: Subverted in that the weird things he sees are real; what's changed is that he's becoming a city and can see them now, whereas normal people can't.
- Starving Artist: He's homeless and mentions eating mostly off the charity of others and "church-plate dinners." Later he lives in Manny's apartment with the other avatars, but Manny doesn't charge him rent.
Manny (Manhattan)
Arrives in New York City with no memories of who he was before. The classic new kid in the city, eager to start fresh, but has the capability within him to be ruthless, manipulative, and violent, which he feels very conflicted about. Generally channels credit cards and cash as constructs.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Brown: Invoked; Manny does in fact have a specific ethnicity (Black American), but everyone who looks at him assumes he shares their heritage somewhere along the line, as part of his power subtly influencing people to trust him.
- Amnesiac Hero: Manny loses his memories of his past life upon arriving in New York, in what's implied to be the city taking away everything from him except what would be useful.
- Amnesiac Resonance: Manny finds it easy to intimidate people with threats of violence, and has a vague feeling this was because he was violent and intimidating before he lost his memories.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Manny, as the avatar of the borough "where money talks and bullshit walks", has powers that come down to emotional manipulation and magical late capitalism, as well as a nasty set of skills from his former life, but he's firmly one of the good guys.
- Bodyguard Crush: Seemingly, being Manhattan is a role that involves being the bodyguard of New York City (whether he wants that or not). It also comes with a rather fanatical crush.
- The Champion: Manny is completely loyal to and in love with the primary avatar and feels his mission is to do anything to protect him.
- Devious Daggers: Manhattan has Wall Street, and that cutthroat part of town comes out in Manhattan rather often. Sometimes that cutthroat-ness manifests literally, in the form of a knife, especially in the second book.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Manny can remember all the general knowledge he had before awakening, but nothing about the details of his own life. He believes it's because he was not a good person before becoming Manhattan, and the City took away that knowledge so it wouldn't impede his ability to fight.
- Like a Duck Takes to Water: You can't get more "quick adjustment to new location" then literally becoming that location.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Often wears a suit or is otherwise professionally attired.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: It gradually becomes clear that before coming to NYC and losing his memory, Manny was nowhere near as nice a person. Turns out he was the enforcer for a Chicago crime family.
Brooklyn Thomason (Brooklyn)
A former rapper turned politician and single mother. Extremely competent and level-headed, but has constant friction with Bronca because they're both older women with similar forceful personalities. Her constructs are usually music.
Tropes:
- Action Politician: Quick to take off her earrings and throw hands in the very physical sense, although she's also hyperaware that as a Black woman in politics that cannot be her first response to every threat.
- Black Boss Lady: Commands a small army of aides in her role as a city council member, and later as a mayoral candidate.
- Establishing Character Music: A rare literary example. Manny and his roommate Bel are surrounded by minions of the Enemy, and Manny's construct of literally throwing money at it is only buying them time (no pun intended). Cue Brooklyn, Just in Time, striding in blaring Grandmaster Flash
and withering away the minions. Establishes her instantly as extremely capable, and also hints at her past as a rapper herself. - Glamorous Single Mother: Her family has done rather well—her father bought two Brooklyn brownstones several decades ago when the neighborhood was blighted, and they're now worth millions. Brooklyn herself didn't get rich off her musical career (as she said, she had an Eighties record contract) but she seems to be comfortably well off and well able to support her teen daughter and elderly father.
Bronca Siwanoy (The Bronx)
A Lenape woman pushing 70, self-identified as a butch lesbian, and the head of an art center. Received the most knowledge of how city magic works. Generally uses physical movement and her steel-toed boots — significant because she used them to stomp on a cop at Stonewall — as constructs.
Tropes:
- Butch Lesbian: And damn proud of it.
- Cool Old Lady: Very much so, although she resents being called old.
- Good Is Not Nice: Bronca is rather abrasive but ultimately heroic, with her harshness largely coming from having fought oppression her whole life.
- Mr. Exposition: The Bronx is the oldest borough, and Bronca's the oldest avatar, so the universe chooses her as the one best suited to knowing the lexicon, the body of knowledge that new cities wake up with. Since the others don't have it, she has to tell them how stuff works.
- Never Mess with Granny: She is a grandmother (or soon-to-be, at least), and you absolutely do not want to mess with her.
Padmini Prakash (Queens)
A young Indian immigrant, living with family in America on a work visa. Very good at math, and had the nickname "Math Queen" (hence Queens). Master of Formulaic Magic, using math and science as the basis of her constructs.
Tropes:
- Celibate Eccentric Genius: The second book confirms that Padmini is asexual.
- Dimensional Traveler: Does the most exploration of alternate universes of any of the New York avatars.
- Good with Numbers: Does complex math problems in her spare time to relax. She is unhappy because she has to get a degree in financial engineering to have a hope of getting employed after she finishes grad school, rather than the pure math she loves.
- Just Friends: Padmini seems to have a particularly close relationship with Veneza, perhaps because they're of similar ages and temperaments.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Proposes this to Manny, in order to get a green card marriage. Manny accepts, if it comes to that.
Aislyn Houlihan (Staten Island)
An agoraphobic young woman living at home with her abusive cop father, who has passed many of his prejudices on to her. Her constructs are based on being an Absolute Xenophobe — she can teleport people elsewhere and generate a shield by saying "Get off my lawn!"
Tropes:
- Dark Magical Girl: The Woman in White manipulates her due to her isolation and feelings of being neglected by the other boroughs.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Her relationship with The Woman In White is this.
- Grew a Spine: Does so as needed, though normally she is shy and easily frightened.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: The thing that seems to push Aislyn into considering that the Woman In White may not actually be her friend isn't the fact that she actively wants the destruction of all of New York, the fact that she's implied she would kill Aislyn too, or the fact that she's mind-controlling all of Staten Island into being uncomfortably pleasant...it's that the DJ being controlled by the Woman won't play Wu-Tang Clan. (Or other music by bands that are from Staten Island.)
- Shrinking Violet: Due to her abusive father and insular upbringing. Has a phobia of leaving Staten Island.
Veneza (Jersey City)
Bronca's young protege at the art center, eager to tag along and try to help the boroughs in their city work.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Brown: Veneza is half Portuguese-American and half Black. Her father is racist, even towards her.
- Starving Artist: Has a college degree in art, and works at the art center but has little confidence in her own work. Complains initially that Bronca doesn't pay her enough for benefits. She gets better pay and benefits after the center gets a huge number of donations.
- Surprise Checkmate: Saves the day at the end of the first book by getting suddenly transformed into an avatar of NYC as well. Jersey City isn't technically part of New York, but it's so close both culturally and geographically that it becomes an honorary borough.
Other Cities
Paulo (São Paulo)
The city most recently awakened (several decades before the events of the first book) before New York, and therefore the one assigned to come help them get adjusted. An urbane, ageless man who wears a business suit and grew up in the favelas. His constructs are business cards and cigarette smoke to represent his city's reputation as a place full of business-obsessed people, which has an air pollution problem.
Tropes:
- Aloof Ally: Paulo's somewhat reserved (especially compared to the brash New Yorks) with a dry sense of humor, but he's firmly on New York's side and drops hints on how to handle the elder cities.
- Ambiguously Gay: Opportunistically sleeps with Neek once, and has an on-again-off-again relationship with Hong Kong. They're "on" again as of the end of the second book.
- Fantastic Noir: He's supposed to guide the avatars of NYC, but after Neek collapses, he has to hunt down the borough avatars and solve the mystery of why things in NYC are going so wrong. Smokes, has a very mysterious and jaded air, and has several "interruptions" throughout the first book written in his dry, professional voice, which turn these segments into a gritty detective story.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Neek seems to think of him this way.
Hong (Hong Kong)
Paulo's own mentor (being the city most recently emerged when São Paulo awoke, in his case during the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century) and on-again-off-again romantic partner. Shares Paulo's noirish air of mystery. Also shows up to help — well, to help Paulo, when he's injured. Wields a yellow umbrella, associated with Hong Kong's pro-democracy protestors, in the final battle.Tropes:
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Insults the group enough that not just the conflict-ready avatars of NYC, but Padmini and Aislyn — the more polite ones — really don't like him. Bronca threatens to throw him out of the car at one point. However, Hong has a notable soft spot for Paulo.
- Tough Love: Hong is mostly helping out because he cares about Paulo, but to the extent that Hong is helpful to the New Yorks at all, his style is pure Tough Love with zero coddling.
London
The only other living composite city (i.e. city with district-level avatars who embody specific neighborhoods, plus an overall prime avatar representing the entire city) to be born before New York, London is also notable for having lost her borough avatars.- Loon with a Heart of Gold: London seems pretty lucid, but according to her has been mad for centuries, because London is far too big for a single avatar.
- Resolved Noodle Incident: In the first book, Hong casually mentions that London ate her borough avatars, which understandably alarms the New York borough avatars. In the second book, London explains that she didn't eat them literally, but that London's thirty-four avatars were perpetually gridlocked and unable to function as a group, so London Prime agreed to take their avatar-ness into herself and become the sole London.
Tokyo
She's a major city whom Manny approaches for help.- Figure It Out Yourself: The darkest version of this trope; Tokyo just doesn't care about what she views as a New York problem.
- I Own This Town: Tokyo is very wealthy and controls a good bit of real estate.
- Workaholic: Self-described. Tokyo hasn't slept in ten years.
Atlantis
Atlantis survived its birth and even gave the Enemy a good deal of trouble—then was the first victim of her team's horrific new tactic of killing cities so completely that they were only ever stories.- The Ghost: Atlantis' avatar is not quite dead.
- Pocket Dimension: What's left of Atlantis and its avatar is in a pocket dimension.
- Ret-Gone: Atlantis was killed by the Woman influencing realities so that it was never real, only stories.
- Surprise Checkmate: The Woman crashed the city summit in Atlantis, gleeful at the thought of killing all the avatars at once, but had forgotten that Atlantis itself had an avatar.
The Enemy
The Enemy/The Woman in White/R'yleh
A whole smorgasbord of Lovecraftian tropes rolled into one entity.- Above Good and Evil
- Affably Evil: Usually polite, friendly, and funny — even if her words are full of threats and portents of doom.
- Black Speech: When she speaks her real name, or when others attempt to do so, it causes humans pain and even allergic reactions.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Since she is a hive mind created by her "masters" in the Ur-verse, her ideas regarding right and wrong have almost nothing to do with human ideas of same.
- Brown Note Being / You Cannot Grasp the True Form: She is a multi-bodied shapeshifter whose never shows her true form, because this would cause others to go mad or die.
- Light Is Not Good: All of her manifestations are white (racially or just as a color) or take the form of bright light. Aislyn finds her whiteness reassuring because of her racist upbringing, but the others know to be ready for a fight when things turn white.
- Tentacled Terror: Most of her manifestations have a Lovecraftian look.
- Villain in a White Suit: Literally always wearing white.
Allies
Bel Nguyen
Bel is from London originally. He and Manny are in Colombia's doctoral program together, and agreed to split an apartment.- Muggle Best Friend: Bel got introduced to magic when he and freshly-incarnated Manhattan got attacked by the Enemy, but took to it with Londoner unflappableness. By the second book he's the sole Muggle inhabitant of the shared avatar apartment.
