This character sheet includes those found in the Just Shapes & Beats fan webcomic series Close to Your Heart, in both the main story and the mini-comics.
Beware of spoilers.
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Main characters
Allies
In general
- Bodyguarding a Badass: Subverted, the legend says that the main guardian that the knights protect is stronger than all four of them combined, but the guardian, Cube, is meeker than any of them.
- Colourful Theme Naming: Each of the knights have a name associated with the color each of them are. Cyan is light-blue, Flax is yellow, Cider is orange and Shamrock is green.
- Light Is Good: They are all bright-colored and they keep the artifact safe from the wrong hands in a white temple.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: The knights were assigned to protect the artifact for eternity and thus have been alive for a long time. Cube appears later on and granted that eating is optional for her, she's likely immortal as well. However, the years have taken on a toll on each of the knights. Furthermore, they think the outside world has grown too dangerous to risk Cube going outside, leaving her in the dark and yet she still yearns to know what's out there.
Cyan
- Blue Is Heroic: He's the cyan-colored knight and leader.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: He thinks he's incapable of living up to previous knights in the duty of protecting the artifact, let alone be a leader, leading him to quietly question if he was even meant to be chosen for the job. Flax helps him see his good qualities again once he opens up.
Flax
Flax
- Ambiguously Gay: His closeness with Cyan could be justified as the two being early friends into their job, but he ()
- Shock and Awe: He has yellow lightning powers, and zaps Cuda's snakes with them.
Cider
Cider
- Establishing Character Moment: What introduces Cider as the jokester of the knights is him starting a joke about 4 knights walking into a bar... before throwing a metal bar into all 4 of them.
- Sad Clown: He's the jokester of the knights, but he later confesses that his (bad) jokes were his coping mechanism for their eternal job.
- Telepathy: He can move stuff with his mind, and his powers manifest in an orange glow around whatever he's lifting.
Shamrock
Shamrock
- The Big Guy: He's the most top-heavy of the knights, and is the most physical.
- Super-Strength: His ability is described as "pure strength"
, and he often defaults to punching his way through his problems.
Cube
Cube
(Spoilers!) Click here to see her corrupted form
The main guardian and caretaker of the artifact, produced from the artifact itself.
- Corrupt the Cutie: The kindly Cube is subjected to immense pain when Cuda corrupts the artifact, and her skin turns pink before fainting. ().
- The Heart: [No pun intended.]
- The Smurfette Principle: She's the only female of the entire main cast.
Boat (Hydro) and Heli
Boat/Hydro and Heli
Hydro (left) and Heli (right)
Click here to see their fused form
Click here to see their default forms
Two giant mechs of vehicular appearance, whose default forms are miniature. They were found in the woods in a bandits' wagon and taken in by the knights.
- Ambiguous Gender: This Tumblr answer shows the genders of all the characters, with the boat and helicopter next to a question mark (while the rest are male or female).
- Fusion Dance: With the knights' help, the two can fuse into a larger mech that looks like Hydro with added wings, and gold and white enhancements. They can shoot a stronger cannon blast consisting of the knights towards Cuda's machine.
- Humongous Mecha: They appear as giant mechs in their debut as they fight Cuda's machine base. Their enlarged appearances are due to them possessing the other two artifacts, and once they remove them from themselves, they shrink to default size.
- Sentient Vehicle: Downplayed. Hydro (or Boat) is modelled after a boat while Heli is modelled off a helicopter, but they're more anthromorphic. Although their default forms appear closer to their counterparts from the original game that do help transport characters, they're far too small for vehicular use here.
- Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: Hydro fights with plasma cannons while Heli uses large knives.
Antagonists
In general
The pink intruders who seek the artifact's power for their own personal gains.
- Anti-Villain: Despite their ambition to obtain the artifact making most of the story's conflict, neither of the bad guys are truly malevolent.
- Despite how stand-offish Blixer seems, he wants the artifact to make the world in his own image to avoid being bossed around. He had a rough past where he wasn't accepted for who he was, so he and Lycan decided to move away and live by themselves. Blixer starts rethinking his motives to get the artifact's power when he realises that he's in love with Cube.
- Depsite his cunning and goal to Take Over the World with the artifact's power, Cuda does not want to needlessly hurt anyone, and the times he had to along the way are his hidden regrets. He is completely unaware that the artifact is connected to Cube, and when he tries to break the artifact for its power and realises that he's hurting her, he wants to stop, but tearfully presses on so that all his efforts would not go to waste.
- Cyclops: Both of the main antagonists, Blixer and Cuda, have only one eye each.
- Foil: Blixer and Cuda compete each other to get the artifact's power to rule the world, but their methods contrast each other's. Cuda works alone, fights with machines and is more cold and calculating. Blixer has minions and, while not above strategy at times, tends to focus more on brute force and being cool doing what he does. Where Cuda attempts stealth, Blixer blows it by making a Big Entrance. The black and pink in their speech bubbles are swapped at the border and fill color.
- Psycho Pink: All the antagonists are pink and black, and shapes that get "corrupted" turn pink (like Cube). It is explained that in this world, shapes can be born pink, in a sense alike to a genetic mutation, and possess abilities unlike other shapes. This is due to the artifact being corrupted in the past.
Cuda
Cuda/Barracuda
- Deadpan Snarker: His single eye is often half-lidded, and when he isn't being intimidating, he's often sarcastic.
- Manipulative Bastard: When he learns about Blixer's feelings towards Cube as well as his insecurities regarding them, he exploits them by suggesting Cube is using Blixer as a tool, amplifying his doubts. This causes Cube to leave Blixer with the artifact and get kidnapped by Cuda.
Blixer
Blixer/"Boss"/New Fresh
- Animal Motifs: Blixer looks like a cat with his circular head and triangular ears (and his design from the original game is in fact designed to be a cat), which is taken a step further in the mini-comics "Blixer is a Freaking Cat" and "Cube Force", which feature Blixer as a talking cat.
- Dumb Muscle:
- Hidden Depths:
- Love Redeems:
- Motive Decay:
- Parental Abandonment: In [[ this blog answer]], Blixer says all he knows about his parents is that they gave him up for adoption ages ago. He doesn't mention them because he doesn't feel the need to.
Lycan
Lycan/Lycanthropy
- Captain Obvious: He uses his doctorate degree in Gender Studies to state the obvious: Cube is indeed female.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: Zigzagged. His dishes are rather atrocious combinations of ingredients, but people rarely complain about the taste. In the mini-comic "Blixer and Lycan Make Soup", however, he and Blixer keep adding stuff to Lycan's soup because it's missing something, but the final concoction tastes so horrendous that they blow it up with a cannon.
- Elite Mook: He looks just like the rest of Blixer's minions, except he can command them and he's much more expressive than them, as they behave like a Hive Mind.
- In Touch with His Feminine Side: The mini-comics have him enjoying being a princess.
- "Lycan Wants To Be a Princess" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Lycan thinks princesses are cool and Blixer helps him make his dream of being one a reality. Although, Lycan quickly gives it up for his normal job when he finds singing to be too hard for him.
- In "Cube Force", he's dressed up as a space princess, and squees upon being given a sparkly magic wand prop.
- Shipper on Deck: Lycan has a tendency of teasing Blixer towards intimacy with Cube, and watches in awe when they're together. As it turns out, he's been wanting Blixer to find a mate for ages, and is ecstatic when he finally realises his feelings for Cube. He even drew fanart of what their children would look like!Blixer: Here, I'll walk you to your room, Cube. Now don't be fooled by this kind gesture! You're still my prisoner!Lycan: Carry her bridal style!Blixer: Oh my god Lycan shut up!
Mini-comic characters
Rave
Rave/Crab Rave
- Innocent Prodigy: Implied. His pastimes with Cuda are meant to keep him sharp-minded, much to Blixer's initial annoyance when he babysits Rave. However, he's not above having fun like most children, as he joins Blixer'sBlixer: So what do you normally do for fun?Rave: Me and Cuda like to do mindful activities together like reading stories, writing about our thoughts, studying star constellations, practicing language arts, and solving riddles and puzzles.Blixer:
- Meaningful Name: Just like his brother, Rave is named from a Noisestorm song, "Crab Rave".
- Morality Pet: While Cuda isn't all bad, he's coldly pragmatic in his operations. Rave is the only one Cuda is completely nice to, and Cuda will protect him at all costs.
Town Paradise residents
In General
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Citizens come in way more colors, shapes and sizes than just the pastel-colored polygonal main characters.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The lives of many town residents perished in a mysterious accident in the past, leaving several to cope with living without their family.
The Grey Twins
Ash Grey and Steel Grey
- Dark and Troubled Past: An incident in the past took the lives of the rest of their family. They are still recovering from the loss and proud of each other's growth and determination to remain kind and loving.
- Eyes Always Shut: Downplayed. Their eyes appear to be closed lines most of the time, in line with how relaxed they are. Ash has his eyes open more frequently than Steel.
- Gentle Giant: Steel is the tallest and broad-shouldered, and just as kind and gentle as his brother.
- Nice Guy: They teach yoga, are often seen in Prayer Pose and are genuinely kind and helpful to everyone, even Blixer, who hates them for it. They are sometimes targets of his wrath and fully aware that he doesn't like them, but they still strive to be nice to him.Blixer: Oh my god I hate Mr. Grey so much. I just want to punch him in the face.Lycan: Why? I think that he's a nice guy.Blixer: Yeah, too nice if you ask me.
- Prayer Pose: They are mostly seen with their palms calmly pressed together in front of the chest. It suits them as yoga teachers.
Sam
Sam
- Extreme Doormat: Downplayed. He tries to tell off Macabre, who is already banned from his stall, for stealing his fruits again. As she expects, Sam doesn't do anything to stop her (besides telling her to leave).Sam: I am not a wimp...
- Nervous Wreck: He gets incredibly jittery when he even sees Lycan and the other flower minions, due to a tragic past incident where "the Lycanthropy" was involved.
Nova
Nova/"Sunny"
- Humanity Ensues: Played with. She's likely based off of the friendly sun in the original game, but she appears much more humanoid here.
- Meaningful Appearance: She's a sun-shaped character with a bright personality.
- Meaningful Name: A nova is another word for star, like the sun, which she looks alike to. Her friends nickname her Sunny.Nova: The name's Nova, but the girls at Bingo call me Sunny. You know why? Because I always brighten up their day with our winning streak!
Macabre
Macabre/La Danse Macabre
- Cleavage Window: Most of her outfits give a view of her cleavage, usually with a triangular window on her chest area.
- Ms. Fanservice: Most of her clothes accentuate her curvy figure and slightly show her chest. Her default outfit has a black jacket over a tight-fitting top with a Cleavage Window, torn shorts and ripped tights. She's pretty mischievous and sensual as well.
- Sinister Scythe: She carries around a large scythe that she has yet to use, but it's clearly based from the game's bonus boss that uses a scythe as a weapon.
