Hero Critique Thread (Because it's about damn time for this too!)

Much better. Now that gives the viewer clearer insight of her motives.

Don't worry about tropes then. I think they're just optional or just for fun (unless I'm missing something from this thread's rules).

...so, should i also post a character profile for percy? Cause my story technically has two protagonists. Or are we limited to only one per user?

You can go on ahead. Writing profiles takes time anyway, and I already have a busy schedule as it is.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Nov 30th 2020 at 5:36:57 AM

Name: Percival, or Percy

Age: 17

Race: Caucasian

Appearance: Shoulder-length brown hair, average build, Brown eyes, with a birthstain on the left of his neck.

Background: comes from a family of military and police officers. Was trained at the musket and the sword by his father. As privateers onboard a ship meant to protect trade boats going to the caribbeans, Percy had his first battle experience against pirates. while he had no trouble shooting them with his musket, His first kill in hand-to-hand combat, as well as witnessing the madness of people slaughtering each other, greatly traumatised the young percy, especially since he regularly reads the bible, which preached love for all and clearly stated "thou shalt not kill".

After the successful, yet traumatizing battle against the pirates, percy and his father returned to mainland england via portsmouth,and opted to take a vacation in manchester to visit his father's family. During their trip, they stopped at gravenbirch for the sunday mess at the local cathedral and for rest and stocking on provisions.

He was waiting for his father to return from the grocery store when he noticed that he'a been gone for quite a while. When he entered the store, he was horrified to witness somebody eating his father alive! (Since this is the renaissance, people wouldn't know what the hell a zombie was.)

Shocked and afraid, percy immediately fired his musket at the zombie, making his head explode with a headshot. As he checked the maimed and mauled body of his father while praying and almost crying, he noticed that other zombies were coming, Attracted by the loud sound his musket made. This prompted percy to flee on foot,as he found his horse being eaten by the zombies and his father's fleeing in terror. He then ran away into downtown, where he noticed a blonde girl around his age pleading for help...

Personality: calm, thoughtful, Cool-headed, chivalrous, faithful.

Role in the Story: one of the two protagonists.

Motivations: His chivalrous ways, his Anger at the corruption in the church and getting the hell out of here.

Goal: At first, it was to get the hell out of here and saving as many people as possible. Later, he would have a new objective: stop the clerical conspiracy. I dunno what it is, i just made it up because i'm listening to Sabbat's "the clerical conspiracy". Maybe i should plan his goal better...

Abilities: analysing skills, keeping a cool head, Natural with the sword and musket,

Weaknesses: Overthinking things, slow to act. His chivalrous ways often gets him in trouble for nothing. Also, blood and carnage.

Hobbies: horse racing, reading the bible, perfecting his swordfighting, the sea.

So yeah, that's percy done. What do you think? I really hesitate to separate him and eleanor at the beginning, as i feel that their personalities, strengths and weaknesses compliment each other very well.

Edited by kinnikuniverse on Nov 30th 2020 at 7:47:18 AM

Yeah, I think you might need more to go with on a character than just a song. But then, that's just me.

• Name: Paul Navarro

• Age: 24

• Personality: Paul is the sort of guy that is surprisingly skeptical for the role he ended up playing - for someone in a military unit closely tied to a theocratic nutbar like Elijah Gibbs, Paul is at once someone who questions not just orders but the premise, the state of things, and anything he is told in general. He was marked down by his superior officer in Elijah's outfit as being "too independent" and "has too much critical thinking". Tellingly, while others in his unit joined in because they wanted the Dominionist theocracy that Elijah promised, he did it because he 1) both saw the evidence there was a magical disease in Sandfield and 2) wanted to see if the disease was continuing to be in effect and if it existed beyond those photos, and 3) spy on Elijah and his mercenaries for a later report. It says something for his determination, survival ability and surveillance skills that he survived numerous attempts by his own CO's to get him killed. Paul's reaction to the actual magic on display went 1) I will believe it when I see it 2) holy shit, young guys in armor flying around and then 3) if this exists, then what else does? So when the unit started calming down and the more theocratic officers were transferred out quietly, one might understand that Paul would be a bit on edge. Other than that, he is a rather passionate and outspoken officer, grateful to the military for getting him off the street. Paul has rather strong agnostic tendencies - he was never the most religious person.

• Abilities: At first, he's just got his standard issue military equipment, a hand gun, a bayonet equipped rifle, and a few grenades. Then, when Caine's double-cross happened, he managed to steal a suit of armor belonging to Umbral Horde Caith Branch, attaining a whip sword, a magitech Hand Cannon, and a dagger.

• Weaknesses: This is all terribly new to Paul. He has no idea what Mana is, and thus was unprepared for going from on top of the world to feeling terribly drained after overusing his whip sword. He is also a bit too gungho at times (cough) trying to solo Aaron Cascade (cough).

• Motivation: Find out what is going on, and then just plain survive.

• Goals: Again, survival - but also more importantly getting home to Mom and Dad, and making sure whatever's going on in Sandfield does not spread.

• Backstory: Paul's backstory is quite mundane - though with a number of factors that should have been warning signs to his employers. Half Chilean on his father's side, half white on his mother's side, he was born into poor circumstances - and demonstrated throughout school a remarkable inquisitive and thoughtful demeanor. He joined the military shortly after high school, with his grades remarked to be high - he had been in several honors classes. Paul was in service during the events that led into Book IV's calamitous war, and signed on for what he thought was going to just be a relatively mundane operation to make sure the plague in this town was gone. Instead, he got thrown into an increasingly long war, and he slowly became more suspicious of Elijah's motives for this whole thing let alone why a mega church pastor was given so much authority. His suspicions only deepened when Elijah went out of contact suddenly. Then Paul and his fellows were deployed to assault "guerilla fighters" taking up residence in the Alvalon Apartments area, a large area with poor cover and no hints prior as to guerillas located there. There had been rumors Elijah actually died, but he'd not heard anything until it was far too late.

• Tropes:

• A Child Shall Lead Them: His attitude toward Matthew Streiss. As far as he is concerned, the idea of an eighteen / nineteen year old boy commanding an entire army is...well, ridiculous. Then he hears what the New Protocol Device is, what it does, and his opinion changes.
• Arch-Enemy: He starts to consider Oren Maynard his, for his role in dropping the bombs. “It may’ve been that insane manchild Caine that ordered this, and it may have been Dark Father Antonius who orchestrated it, but it was Maynard who dropped the bombs. It was Maynard I remember serving alongside, who now resembles nothing but a rotting, fat, oozing corpse - it is Maynard I hate.” He finally kills Maynard near the end of Book IV.
• Bad Powers, Good People: One of few upstanding people to ever wear the armor of Umbral Horde Caith / The Violators. He keeps the “Serpent Sword” the armor came with even after he upgrades to Blackened Praetor gear.
• Break the Cutie: The Sandfield War really gets to him at times - he sees people he knew and valued as fellow soldiers massacred, in some of the most horrific ways, and he has to keep on going. His arc basically shows a soldier who defies the typical comic depiction of an unfeeling stoic.
  • Let alone how his introduction to the Umbral Horde went. He hides in a closet and watches a meeting room fill with monsters and demons openly discussing and even joking about the horribly painful deaths of his fellows on the ground...and he has to sit there, waiting, until the room clears out so he can run back down and warn everyone about what’s going on.
• Cassandra Truth: He tries and tries to tell people there’s something grievously wrong with Elijah’s forces doing this, but is only reprimanded for having too much critical thinking. He gets more Cassandra moments as he realizes as things go on that Elijah being out of contact, Caine’s existence, and the strange overcast day, combined with no real meaningful contact with the command structure probably means a betrayal is on the horizon. Many of the more devout members of the outfit die in the bombing not believing Paul Navarro’s frantic warnings.
• Combat by Champion: A ruse he uses to his advantage - more distractions to keep the Umbrals from continuing their advance. He does get a little too hyped up and tries to challenge Aaron Cascade, a Scion, to one of these.
• Combat Pragmatist: How he gets his hand on a Violator's armor - enemy wants a duel. Paul tries to shoot him dead when he sees the Violator is holding a sword...and the sword whips the bullet out of the air. Paul basically improvises the rest of the fight, getting the whip sword stuck, blinding the enemy for ten seconds, and then clubbing him and by accident disengaging the enemy's Powered Armor. Resulting in Paul grabbing it up for himself and throwing the Violator into the supply closet, tied up.
• Deadpan Snarker: How he copes with the fact his life has gone substantially off the rails into hell. By the time right wing militia types are trying to murder him, he doesn't even question it - he just beats up some Nazis.
• Determinator: Determination and resourcefulness are Paul Navarro’s strongest assets. If his own weapons don’t work, grab the enemy’s. He also bravely and openly worked to fight amidst the flames of Caine’s bombardment of the Alvalon Apartment District - concocting a plan to force the Umbral Horde to cease bombardment.
• The Enemy Weapons Are Better: Paul quickly learns that magitek is the way to go - and the only place to get it initially was scavenging or stealing it from the Umbral Horde enemies. “I’m using a whip sword in the year 2016. This is so fucking surreal.” He keeps the whip sword after switching out for Blackened Praetor armor, due to getting accustomed to its use.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Downplayed, but he still hears from Oren Maynard, Tobias' Mook Lieutenant, all he needed to know. "Heh...in thirty minutes those miserable fools on the ground will be stricken from this Earth…in fire, destruction and corrosion!”
• Fire-Forged Friends: He joins up with several others caught up in Caine’s Purge - Angelina (Elwood’s sister), Lisa (Aaron Cascade’s cousin), Duane Logan (a student reporter), and Luis Alavista (a former family friend of the Dekerens).
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Defied - when he sees magic for the first time, as well as the 317th's Powered Armor and Sword Beams, he immediately believes it is magic when he's told that is what it is. Hence, he's less caught flat footed by some of the ensuing chaos after Elijah's death, though the sheer magnitude of the situation still hit him pretty hard.
• Good-Looking Privates: Paul is a very handsome young man who even Angelina, formerly an Alpha Bitch, refers to as “Latin Dreamboat”.
• Hand Cannon: The Blackened Praetor armor comes with one, which he gets a lot of use out of in the last days of the war, like, say, killing Oren Maynard.
• Harbinger of Impending Doom: Paul manages to get to the ground by a series of Bavarian Fire Drill measures via using “Scion” during said measures after hearing the term exactly once. He promptly only just managed to warn the people trying to kill nonexistent guerillas that something sinister is going on.
• He Knows Too Much: Owing to his mental acuity, Paul rapidly realized what happened in Sandfield and how complicit in Caine’s machinations the current administration was. As a result, there was a Revealing Cover Up attempt to silence Paul - via having ersatz Proud Boys try to kill him. However, after fighting literal demons and archdevils, Paul curbstomped the right wing street toughs.
• Hot-Blooded: Got incredibly fired up - perhaps too much, because on the high of learning how to use magic, he was about to go for a one on one duel against Aaron Cascade, a full powered Scion of the Dark God of War. He actually runs out of Mana and goes from combat high to running on fumes.
• Indy Ploy: He more or less Indy Ployed his way on to the main Umbral skyship, followed by going back down, getting a sizable resistance force going even amidst the bombing, and even managed to damage the bombardment vessels to prevent the Umbral Horde from doing Death from Above for a long while yet.
• It's Personal: In his eyes it became personal when the Umbral Horde decided to slaughter those deemed unwilling to convert .
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Midway into Book IV, he upgrades from Violator armor to salvaged Blackened Praetor armor.
• Only I Can Kill Him: He asks for a “special consideration” to kill Oren Maynard if he is spotted. He finally gets his revenge on Maynard near the end of the war - Oren Maynard dies shortly before Caine does.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: He likes to think he's outgrown such notions as demons and monsters under the bed. Then he sees what the Umbral Horde is like. (while crouching in a supply closet, watching a bunch of guys walk by discussing their imminent massacre) "...What the blue hell did I walk in on?"
  • Basically, for Paul, all of the monsters he’d dismissed were never under the bed - they walked among men just fine. He just couldn’t see them...until the Masquerade broke and all of a sudden the monsters were free.
• The Stoic: Initially, he seems calm, reasonable, and divorced from extreme emotional reactions.
  • Not So Stoic: ...until he sees what stands before him, only just out of sight prior. And it gets worse when Tobias, Oren Maynard’s BOSS, stands before him. “I can feel it in you. The urge to just push it all to the side. To evaluate, without commitment. But you can’t. Because if you did, you’d go insane. You cannot evaluate all of this without confronting the reality everyone you served beside...will die. That despair wallowing in your gut, threatening to explode out...can only be avoided for so long until it rots your overripe mind.”
• Revealing Cover Up: The attempt to have Paul killed was...not exactly well planned out. For one, the lead Proud Boy on the operation hadn’t even deleted the text message from General Flynn instructing him about it. What's more, the lead would be killer would not stop bragging about it on their message boards...
• Revenge: On Oren Maynard, for dropping the bombs that killed those with him, and numerous others living in and around the Alvalon area.
• Rival Turned Evil: He and Oren Maynard initially had a bit of interservice rivalry going on, but then Paul kept his distance from the strange circumstances going on, whereas Oren Maynard became a devotee of Silmarul - and thus became a monstrosity, more or less resembling an oozing, pus-ridden zombie.
• Spanner in the Works: Caine, being Caine, wanted a Battle of Isstvan III - and he entrusted the logistics to Antonius. Antonius attempted to make sure “there would be no fracas”, reorganized divisions covertly over time to put the target units on the ground, avoided handpicking them then and there, and that he would have everyone unwilling to join the Umbrals killed without need for a battle. And it all would’ve worked out...if it wasn’t for Navarro. Who proceeded to Bavarian Fire Drill his way on to an Umbral airship, discover they were hiding above the clouds, get back down and warn enough people to force the issue - diverting Caine and Antonius’ attention in order to get logistics minded soldiers out and ready to defect to the 317th / Resistance side.
  • He also interferes in the plot to turn Rand’s brother Malachi into a Dark Messiah and fracture the 317th, due to seeing how cult-like Elijah’s loyalist forces were, informing Rand and Garth about cult methodology and disrupting Malachi's cult. Paul also infiltrates the cult and gives them bad information, leading to their downfall when they make their move too early.
• Spotting the Thread: It doesn’t take him long to realize the Umbral Horde is scheming to bombard the Alvalon area, taking advantage of the crowded apartments to make retreating from the bombardment and its damages difficult.
• Token Good Teammate: One of very few good members of the Gibbs Army - and in fact secretly helps innocents who can’t fight get out of the way of the fighting. And he kept a low enough profile that he evaded being made a priority target - thus letting him become a Spanner in the Works.
• Uncanny Valley: His experience of Caine. “It was like a human who turned into something horrifying, now pretending to be a human again, and failing.”
• We Need a Distraction: Repeatedly in the Alvalon Massacre. Realizing the Umbral Horde needs to be more permanently sidetracked, he and his new allies suit up and start egging on the Scions themselves. At first it seems Antonius’ battle strategies were too ironclad...then Elwood and Aaron Cascade teleport down when they realize who is calling them out. Tobias realizes the vanguard would get sidetracked if he didn’t move, so another Scion went in as well. Antonius realizes what is going on, and he’s forced to halt remaining bombardment.

Paul sounds really interesting! I like the idea of a skeptic character getting involved in the supernatural, especially in a war situation. It's a cool idea and he seems like the sort of character I'd enjoy to read about.

Name: Tate Barnaby

Age: 20

Personality: Tate is chronically shy and painfully insecure. He suffers from Avoidant Personality Disorder, meaning he's constantly worried about what everyone thinks and has a fear of being mocked or criticized. Despite that, he's also incredibly kind and sweet-natured, and is extremely protective over the people he cares about.

Abilities: Tate's biggest asset is his physical strength. As one of the biggest and strongest characters in the story, he has a lot of brute force to work with. He also tends to learn quickly and, unlike the people he travels around with, he tends to think a little more clearly and isn't the type to be impulsive.

Weaknesses: As mentioned, Tate's incredibly insecure about himself and believes he simply isn't as good as the people around him. He's a massive pushover and while he can defend other people, he hardly ever defends himself. Additionally, though he can catch on fast and isn't stupid, he's uneducated and has poor eye-sight, which made his school-life a big struggle for the few years he attended it.

Goals: He wants to help topple the government and ensure everyone has a better, happier life.

Motivation: Tate's motivated mostly by his own sense of compassion and responsibility. He can't turn away people in need and wants to be a force for good in the world.

Role in the story: One of the main heroes of the story, who is at first traveling in one of the Cast Herd alongside Constance and Ira Parker, two doctors. He joins them after his mother is murdered early in the story as they're the only people he can turn to (despite having just met them), and they take him under their wing. He becomes an honorary part of their family while slowly developing into his own, growing a spine and joining the rebellion after he learns of his talent for combat and his passion for defending people.

Backstory: Tate grew up as the middle child in a struggling farm family. During his childhood, he was bullied by the other students for supposedly being "dumb", when in actuality he was in need of glasses that his parents couldn't afford for him. Once he was in the third grade, his other siblings both got sick and passed away from a fever he miraculously managed to avoid catching. Soon after his father got killed by an enforcer during a drunken rage. Young Tate was left alone with his mother, and at the age of 10 he decided to drop out of school to work the farm full time, something the school system actually allowed. So he spent the next decade of his life doing nothing but physical labor to try and help himself and his mother survive, eventually striking a deal with a wealthy man who purchased his corn every autumn. However, this man was taking advantage of Tate's position and personality by bullying him into accepting unfairly low prices for the harvest, barely enough for them to keep the farm, forcing Tate to work harder and harder every year to compensate.

The story begins when he and his mother are visited by Constance and Ira, who are seeking shelter for the night. They decide to pay Tate and his mother for their kindness, but this backfires, as they're wanted criminals on the run. The next morning, Tate and his mother get another visitor, this one being a cruel enforcer from Seattle, who is in pursuit of Constance and her brother. This enforcer took an immediate disliking to them, and even though Tate told him the information he wanted to know, the enforcer still set his farm on fire- which killed his mother. Homeless and alone, Tate sought out the Parkers before they left, and that's where his plot begins.

Relevant Tropes:

• All-Loving Hero: Cares about everyone, even if they're not on his "side". He's one of the few who's willing to see the enforcers as actual people and not just villains, which is one of the reasons he's chosen to infiltrate their rankings.
• Big Brother Instinct: He may be a push-over and he may not defend himself, but he'll do anything to defend the Parkers, especially the 15-year old Ira.
• Book Dumb: Not by his own fault; not having a great education means he's trying to play catch-up during the story. He's not stupid by any means and he catches onto things quicker than most, but he struggles greatly with school work.
• Bully Magnet: As a kid, he was relentlessly targeted by the other kids for being "stupid". His only real friend was his brother and his cat.
• Deadpan Snarker: His humor is surprisingly dry, especially when he's around the Parkers.
• Elemental Motifs: Fire, ironically. Tate's associated with fire throughout the story, from the fire that killed his mother to the phoenix tattoo his love-interest wears. It follows him throughout his journey and symbolizes his development.
• Extreme Doormat: Being nice to a fault like he is means that he's very easy to take advantage of, even if you aren't intending to boss him around. Getting over this and learning to stand up for himself is a major aspect of his subplot.
• Farm Boy: Just a kid from rural Nebraska, who slowly learns to become a heroic character and a trusted member of the rebellion.
• Gentle Giant: Tate's characterized primarily by being kind and sweet-natured to everyone he meets, despite being built like a tank. People are a bit intimidated by him when they first meet, only to then discover he's a total softy.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Growing up, and still to this day, his closest companion is his cat, Pepper. He raised her from a kitten and she goes with him when he leaves with the Parkers.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Though his family loved him, he was always neglected in favor of his siblings, who didn't have the same struggles he had. Tate grew up comparing himself to his older brother, who was cool and popular and smart when he was not. When he travels with the Parkers, this flares up again; he's the "middle child" of the dynamic and as much as the Parkers respect him and love him, he's well aware that he'll never actually be one of them, and that everyone who meets them just sees him as "the friend".
• The Mole: Eventually ends up infiltrating the enforcement as a spy, along with a few other members of the rebellion.
• My Greatest Failure: Hates himself for "allowing" his mother to die, and desperately tries to make himself feel redeemed by helping whoever he can however he can. It doesn't actually work, as it just makes him feel worse for his one big failure.
• Opposites Attract: His love-interest is Waverly, a tough gangster girl from Seattle. She starts to warm up to him when he shows kindness to her despite her status in life, and he's awed by her strength and fearlessness.

Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 30th 2020 at 10:15:54 AM

I'll admit the combination of high physical strength with being kind of a pushover is one I'm familiar with, and I kind of wonder what kind of rebellion this is. There's a lot I don't know, but I like what I see so far. He seems like a pretty relatable guy, and I hope for the best. Being a spy like that can be pretty dangerous.

• Name: Sam Delaney

• Age: 17

• Personality: Sam is more or less a Technical Pacifist by the start and the sort of guy who'd never hurt anyone. Kind of a pushover, really. A Gentle Giant even by the time New Dawn starts, he's the son of a local doctor, and aspires to become a doctor as well - to repay the generosity his father showed by adopting him. Sam is quite intelligent and resourceful, and even when he attained magic, he prioritized healing and defensive spells as opposed to any kind of offensive ability. He's also the type that somewhat sadly ends up willingly taking the blame whenever things go awry for his friends, which is used and abused in him by Elwood all the way up until Sam couldn't take it any more. His personality undergoes a lot of evolution in New Dawn IV as he goes from side character to main character. He had to reconcile the drastic situation of Green Wall's encirclement, Elijah's genocidal ambitions, and later the Umbral Horde's horrors with his own morality as a would be doctor. Even though he had to directly decide to intervene and fight in order to preserve more lives (by fighting and killing), he still had a very rough time of it which, due to him becoming a member of the 317th, entailed several close calls with The Fall, the brigade's infamous dark side - on top of Sam voluntarily taking the job to care for and attempt to lead the Fallen back to sanity. To say this is a tremendous burden is probably an understatement on top of all the other work he has to do.

• Abilities: Sam as a member of the 317th has a "Burst Pack" that more or less gives him highly gimmicky flight (more or less moving quickly one direction at a time). Due to some fears of heights, though, Sam prefers to remain ground-bound. He specifically refused a specialized suit of Powered Armor so it could go to someone more frontline bound, instead using a standard variant for the 317th. Following his entrance into the 317th, he picked up on use of weapons, namely, a blessed mace from about 1200 years prior called Sacramentum. Sam is also capable in healing and barrier magic, preferring to prioritize non-harm based magic. However as he moved into a more Combat Medic role, he branched out from typical healing into blood-related magic, which has some grotesque potential capabilities if used on an enemy.

• Weaknesses: Sam has a debilitating fear of heights and at the start some severe issues about fighting at all. Sam also has barely any offensive magical ability at all at least that he's fully comfortable using.

• Goals: Put an end to the War of Sandfield, and then try and preserve the peace.

• Motivation: Daniel Braddock was his best friend before the Masquerade came down and the world went to hell in a handbasket, and Shin Oumitsunu was also a close friend. He couldn't just let them face all this alone. On top of that, he saw how bad things could get first hand, and he couldn't just let things potentially get worse.

• Role in the story: The Medic / Combat Medic of the 317th.

• Backstory: Sam is best described as being everyone's best friend - for good and for ill. Elwood basically used him for assistance time and time again, but everyone else liked the extremely helpful doctor's son. That is not to say Sam had no issues - he is utterly worried about his adoptive dad not seeing him as helpful, and his Extreme Doormat personality gets him walked over repeatedly. This all has to change by the time Green Wall comes up. Sam ends up dealing with the aftermath of the Greenway Park Massacre , wherein Elijah's forces fired on and massacred a huge number of protesters trying to get Green Wall taken down. Sam failed to save any of them, a fact that motivated and haunted him from then on. When Matthew returned from the New Protocol Device - a powerful magical device with manifold, dangerous properties that was also now their only hope - Sam disobeyed his dad's instructions due to his experience trying to treat the Greenway victims. Becoming a member of the 317th was not easy on Sam - the innate weapons and combat skill development that comes with it clashed badly with his pacifistic ways, and The Fall haunted him numerous times. Add to the fact his dad apparently stopped recognizing Sam as human at all, and you have a recipe for issues.

• Relevant Tropes:
• Actual Pacifist -> Technical Pacifist: In light of the fact everyone would die unless drastic actions were taken, Sam became the 317th's medic. He becomes a bit wittier, mostly to cope, and still tries to be everyone's friend. He just has to acknowledge he'll need to kill in order to preserve more lives.
• All Take and No Give: How Elwood treats poor Sam. Eventually Sam gets tired of it and...lightly tells him he needs help and ends contact.
• Apologizes a Lot: He apologizes quite a lot. A few of his fellow service members joke he must be Canadian.
• Bad Powers, Good People: How Sam sees his magic. Easily one of the nicest sorts, hates fighting and killing at all and would prefer if given the option not to kill...and he has Blood Magic, which has a number of gruesome potential uses. For example, giving infamous Violators general Luke Locke an embolism.
• Best Friend: Shin counts Sam as his best friend - Shin lacked a car, so Sam and his dad helped drive Shin to game stores for his tabletop games. Sam's also the only one later on who doesn't really mind Shin's references, and even participates in them from time to time - knowing they're how Shin's not going crazy from you know, a huge army of mercenaries and lunatics trying to kill them all.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Sam is the nicest guy in an entire army. But if push absolutely comes to shove, he knows human anatomy well enough to make his Blood Magic absurdly painful. In the final fight, he downs Luke Locke in one move - and as a cherry on top, he completely deprived Luke - a sensation addict - of any physical feeling whatsoever for 10 hours. There's a reason after the fact just knowing Sam's there makes Luke Locke nope right out of the engagement.
• Big Damn Heroes: He participates in the charge at Alloway, the first engagement of the 317th that chased off Elijah's men from a location where other resistance cells were holed up.
• Blood Magic: Regarded with shame by him, but he is very capable of manipulating blood - both to heal damages and undo damaging clots, and also to do a lot of damage in a hurry.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: He minds Shin in order to make sure he doesn't get anyone too aggravated and that he keeps his attention on tactics when appropriate.
• Evil Me Scares Me: Sam accidentally gets too angry as Jake Wistinzki rants on shortly after his first fight, The Fall kicks in...and Sam wakes up from a light exposure to it having choked Jake unconscious. Even as unsympathetic as Jake was, Sam still hated hurting him out of nowhere like that and was horrified by what he did.
• Extreme Doormat: Early on - and even after gaining magic. It takes the monumentous events of Book IV to make Sam stand up for himself.
• Foreshadowing: Treating Malachi, Sam writes down some notes detailing some...telling irregularities in Malachi's body. The cult Malachi was working with destroy the notes en route to Matthew.
• Gentle Giant: Six foot six inches tall, 240 lbs of muscle mass...and he's a big ol' softy.
• Heroic Willpower: Even when Malachi tries to psychically assault him near the tail end of the cult's arc, Sam fights it off, and throws enough into a reprisal to stun Malachi - letting Garth set up the winning shot.
• Humble Hero: Sam is not the boisterous, bragging sort.
• I Have No Son!: Sam on top of everything else has to deal with his dad not exactly being supportive. Apparently Sam changed enough due to the New Protocol Device and other things that his dad pulled this and more - no longer recognizing Sam as human.
• Interrupted Suicide: On top of everything else - Sam ends up interrupting numerous attempts by a small cult of survivors called the Angelfyre Church to invoke a Suicide by Cop variant. Members of the Church of Angelfyre think the 317th can send them to Heaven - by killing them.
• Ironic Fear: Isn't it somewhat ironic that the man in the magitek army known for its surface / air combat methods is afraid of heights?
• Iron Woobie: Sam deals with a lot. And I do mean a lot. But he still goes forward and still works to make sure everyone else is safe, healthy and secure. Even after the war, his adoptive dad remains viciously dismissive and cruel, even after Sam saved him from getting sacrificed off by Corpheus Scyllo's Dark God Cult.
• Lethal Harmless Powers: Extrapolating from his healing powers let him become a user of Blood Magic.
• Mellow Fellow: It's complicated after the 317th induction, but before it, Sam was one of the most calm young men in the setting.
• My Greatest Failure: He views his failure to save the people killed by Elijah as this, blaming himself for not being able to heal their wounds with his just last book discovered magic.
• Named Weapon: Sacramentum, his mace. He prefers it over bladed weapons. Though he is markedly disappointed to hear it has a rather grim history.
• Nice Guy: Even Matthew thinks he overdoes it a bit and comes off instead as kind of a doormat at times.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Even Sam has more than enough of Malachi as his messiah complex gets a little too much, and the cult aspects become undeniable.
  • "Listen. I know what you're thinking about this. And it's dumb. It's dumb! You're putting your need to be right and powerful and a savior above what's factually right. You're not saving anyone, you're not leading people into a new world. You're trading out your loyalty for the patronage of monsters. Now, Shin says a lot, and I think he goes too far sometimes, but look at Vicelogia, Varancain, Silmarul, Zayufur, Azekred, Shiryu...they ruin people. And you think just serving those particular Dark Gods would go well for you? Keep them distracted and bickering over you? Malachi, please. You're not usually this shortsighted! We went to school together. You're better—-brighter than this!"
• Unstoppable Rage: To the same extent as other 317th members - and possibly more. Sam has been through a lot, and due to how that all works with The Fall, it translates to him having full on lost time due to getting too angry. Considering how mellow Sam is normally, it's a rather jarring shift for him.
• War Hero: Like other 317th members, he's regarded as a war hero after the War of Sandfield. He's not too fond of the terminology. "We just...did what anyone should've done. Prevented casualties as best as we could, and worked to preserve life within the parameters we could."

Edited by NickTheSwing on Dec 3rd 2020 at 12:12:48 PM

Specifically the rebellion is a large group of people working for a character named Warren Kidd, who I discussed a few pages back, with most of them just being normal people with double-lives trying to help change the world and topple their dystopian government. Tate ends up being a "field rebel" which means he has an active role and directly fights the enforcement.

And yeah, the spy stuff is pretty dangerous and his friends even protest when he's offered the mission because they don't want him to get hurt but he insists on doing it. It's a big character moment for him as before that point he probably would've ended up rejecting it because his friends disagreed with him going, but there he stands up for himself and makes it clear he wants to do this.

Edit: Ayy, another take on a Gentle Giant. Sam sounds really likable, but not flat or bland. I like the special touch of him being afraid of heights despite his "flight" abilities.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 3rd 2020 at 3:07:30 PM

Hello! Can we also post side characters, or is it protagonists only?

I posted a side character a while ago and it was fine.

Okay, well, if nobody else wants to post, here's one more protagonist from my story, and she's one of my darkest characters yet. Introducing Cleo Kane.

Name: Cleo Kane

Age: 21

Personality: Cleo's a pretty dry, quiet and focused character. She's temperamental and bitter, but that comes from a place of desperation and fear. She's a tough cookie but spends a good chunk of the story in a position where she can't exactly express that side of herself.

Abilities: She's resourceful, mechanically inclined, and good with weapons, such as crossbows. She thinks and learns quickly.

Weaknesses: Inexperienced and impulsive, which means that while she's talented she's also prone to things like going rogue, breaking rules, and alienating her allies.

Goals: Cleo's goal is to destroy the Human Trafficking industry that's commonplace in the setting, she herself having been a victim of it. She does this very forcefully, by slaughtering those in charged and relocating the victims to a safer place, hoping to scare people out of the industry.

Motivation: As mentioned, Cleo herself was a victim of this Human Trafficking industry, and was there for years. As a result of the abuse she suffered and of having to rely primarily on herself to do anything about it, she's become very intent on destroying the system any means necessary and saving as many people as possible now that she herself is free.

Role in the story: At first, she was just Emory and Macie's friend who lived a double life as a bar slave, only being able to contribute to the rebellion when they were able to pick her up for a week. Her "coworkers" at the bar ended up manipulating her into helping them steal Emory's weapons, and as this came after one particularly traumatic night, this was the push Emory needed to help her free herself and her friends. Cleo decided to take on an active role afterward, following through and destroying more bars, helping the rebels do more field work, and growing into her own as a powerful, ruthless enemy of the government...who happens to leave a trail of bodies in her wake.

Backstory: Cleo was very young when her birthfather died, and a few year later her mother remarried and her half-sister, Nova, was born. Things were okay for a while, though they lived in a rough, poor area of Denver and Cleo dreamed of exploring the world one day. Then her mother passed away and her stepfather began to change, becoming desperate for money. Cleo was being pressured to find work and make money, and managed to do some odd-jobs around the neighborhood, but it wasn't enough for him. He eventually found out she was saving some of the money for herself and snapped, deciding to take extreme measures to fix the problem. With nothing of value in the house to sell, he settled on selling off Cleo herself, inviting the owner of a local slave bar over to visit and check her out after she got home from school. She was taken away that night, and spent the next five years in the bar, being rented off to various clients and doing unpaid restaurant work when not with them. Eventually, Emory came by the bar, having been talked by her "coworkers" into taking a chance on recruiting her. She joined the rebellion and became something of a part-time rebel, but quickly grew unsatisfied and unhappy with her situation and desperate for something more. This is where her subplot begins.

Relevant Tropes:

• Anti-Hero: She's a dark, bitter murderer who alienates even her closest allies...but she's also on a one-woman quest for Slave Liberation and cares deeply about those closest to her. In fact she does want to get better, she wants to heal, but she's too deep into the darkness and refuses to calm down until she wins.
• Broken Bird: She's bitter and unhappy and believes herself to be beyond healing, even if she wants to get better.
• Determinator: One of her most noteworthy traits is that she does not give in- she keeps fighting, whether it's with the goal of escaping her slum, surviving her slavery, or toppling the slave system itself. Despite coming off as a docile pushover at the beginning, it's really her just laying low and doing what she thinks she needs to do to survive.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Essentially becomes this. Even her allies kinda resent her, and her best friend from the bar finds her actions and attitude horrifying. She's still pretty loyal to them, and they try to help her, but things are strained at best.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In fighting against the villains, and demolishing the bar industry, Cleo ends up becoming just as brutal and murderous as the people she fights.
• The Quiet One: Cleo doesn't talk much, and while she can sometimes be a little more talkative, she's generally not one to say much.
• Revenge Before Reason: Her one-track-minded goal of revenge and liberation blinds her to all else and causes her to lash out at those around her, pushing everyone else away.
• Sanity Slippage: She's trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of anger and lashing-out. It goes like this: She's hurting and feels isolated, but can't admit her feelings to her friends because she can't trust them very easily, and so she just takes her anger out on the people she fights, but that just isolates her more and continues the cycle. She ends up being pretty unstable as a result of this constant spiral.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Wants to heal, wants to be a better person, and wants to have allies, but is too angry and untrusting to do much more than alienate people.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Once she's freed from the bar and can speak her mind without fear of punishment, she becomes quite snarky, cold, and aggressive, and is prone to putting her own goals and plans ahead of everyone else's.
• The Unfettered: At first she plays it safe and smart, but once she's free she starts to realize that taking more extreme measures is the only way for her to free everyone else.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Theft, murder, extortion are all things she unapologetically engages in, but she does it all for the cause she's fighting for and truly believes in.

And yes, Cleo was a Sex Slave. I just wasn't sure how to really go into detail on that point so I kept it vague, but here it is if you wanted to know.

Nicktheswing, your character sound cool! I just have a question. Does your character develop over the story or does he change other people. Cause character should be one or the Nicktheswing, your character sound cool! I just have a question. Does your character develop over the story or does he change other people. Cause character should be one or the other.

And warjay77 you’re sounds complex and dark! And I have say she sounds like a fan-favorite.

As for my character... —-

Name: Ultimate

Age: 16

Personality: A narcissistic, tech-savvy Nominal Hero only concerned with being the most popular and most rich hero in history, He has ego the size of Saturn, and he thinks he’s entitled to became the best hero. He’s The Snark Knight He’s also EXTREMELY selfish, treating his high-school friends like dirt and backstabbing his superhero friends for publicity. It only that but he’s whiny. Complaining and blowing up whenever something doesn’t go his way Cocky, Arrogant] [[TheCynic and cynical. He is the core definition of an Anti-Hero.

However, are hints of him not being that bad of a person. He loves children. And treats them with care, especially children that have been abused themselves. He even goes to orphanages to sing songs to them. He’s also has a fear of being deemed worthless and staying in poverty. And will do anything to make sure a there isn’t a future where he is deemed worthless. He’s also very charming with the ladies, but is more of love and leave them type due to a fear of commitment.

Abilities: he has the Spider-man package. Super strength, super speed, super durability. (Without the pesky weakness to bullets and swords) enhanced sense. (But no Spider-Sense) and a technological super genius Not because he’s was born with it as a superpower, mind you. But because of of natural talent with making machine and hard work.

Weakness: despite all of this, he is very stupid and sabotages his own plans constantly. He also, as I said, has a Hair-Trigger Temper which effects his abilities to be a hero. He has no martial arts skills and can’t fight for the life of him. All his invention tend to malfunction and blow up straight in his face. He also more concerned with popularity and reputation than saving people. A fact the bites him in the ass often.

Role in the story: he the main character and constantly changing his identity to whatever is marketable and popular, allowing for parodies and satire (Don’t worry, he gets better)

Backstory: living poverty all his life. James often desired the life of his friends, who were relatively better off. He suffered neglect from his mother, constant praise from his distant father, and attacks from adults when he was only four year old. All of this plus, seeing being a hero could provide him with everything he wanted and more, lead for him to want to become the biggest, richest, number one hero of all time. He suffered from a Awakening and got superpower as a result. And now desires being the top hero.

Relevant Tropes

• Abusive Parents: In one episode he adopts a child to use as his sidekick and treats him like trash in to ‘toughen him up’. He regrets this later on.
  • he also has a neglectful mother who never pays attention to him due to how she resents him for making her life worse, but never willing to beat him, due to her own abuseive parents.

• Attack! Attack! Attack!: His usual mode of attack, due to his impulsiveness and impatience.

• Ambition Is Evil: Downplayed. While not evil, he’s definitely immoral and only think of himself. His ambition knows no bounds.

• Anti-Hero: A textbook definition. Cynical, jaded, selfish, narcissistic, and an incredible Lack of Empathy.

Bad Boss: In one episode, he hires sidekicks and treats them all like dirt. Including a child sidekick who he doesn’t feed, take care of, and beats as training. He eventually comes to a Jerkass Realization

• The Bully: bullies, mock and belittles one kid who used to bully that has since come to regret it.

• The Casanova: He’s very good with woman and picks them up every time he’s sees a pretty one

• Can't Take Criticism: you’ll never convince him to be respectful of critics. He’s sees them as jealous.

• Character Development: He changes as the story goes on. Going from a ‘Cynical Anti-Hero’ to an ‘selfless hero trying his best’ to ‘The Hero’

• Child Prodigy: Was capable of making miniature arc reactors when he was 12 years old. That’s impressive.

• Children Are Innocent: He believes in this, he’ll try his hardest to protect kids. One of his only heroic qualities.

• The Cynic: Believes all heroes are selfish, self-serving and only care for themselves. And he sees nothing wrong with it.

• Determinator: He failed to become he top hero more times than he can count. But he keeps trying, no matter what.

• Dude, Where's My Respect?: has a belief he should be given respect by everyone and everything. Despite his immortality.

• Gadgeteer Genius: Has a natural talent towards making technology and studies hard towards making it.

• Glory Hound: Only concerned with being seen as the greatest and will do anything to achieve that.

• Greed Wants to become ‘the richest fucking hero in the whole world’

• Hair-Trigger Temper: Has a problem with people thinking he’s not great and tends to blow up every time he’s not given credit for something.

• The Hero: He becomes one of these in the later season. Only after going through trial after trial.

• Inferiority Superiority Complex: has this due to the constant praise given by his father, and the attacks from thugs on him and his mother gave him a fear of being proclaimed worthless, making his drive to become the top hero even greater.

• It's All About Me: only cares for himself and thinks he’s more important than ANYONE else.

• Jerkass: treats his friends like dirt and constantly tries schemes and scams to become the number one hero.

• Jerk Jock: Is one of these. Tends to get high scores at gym through cheating with his superpower and looks down on everyone.

• Narcissist: believes fully that he’s better than everyone else and he needs to become the top hero to make sure everyone else knows it.

• Never My Fault: Has a inability to take responsibility for his own actions. When he actually does in the rare occasion it’s serious business.

• Pet the Dog: He treatment of his previous sidekick qualifies for this. Sending him back to the orphanages when he realizes he’s mistreating him and tells he’s sorry for everything he did.

• Pride: Has this in SPADES due to his distant dad showering him with complements.

• Shameless Self-Promoter: See no problem with promoting himself or any business he’s getting into for the episode

• Small Name, Big Ego: He’s a G-list hero. (That’s right, G-LIST) and yet thinks he better then everyone else, even truly big heroes.

• Stock Superpowers: He has super speed, super durability, and super strength. Basically the Spider-Man package.

• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Every time he actually does something good. He expects a praise. Unless it’s with the aforementioned sidekick.

Sounds like you have a pretty interesting character. I don't know what you have planned but as a recommendation I'd say you start by playing his flaws for laughs (especially the sidekick part, as being cruel to a child could make him unsympathetic to some, even if you develop him later) then slowly show the consequences of his jerkassery coming back to bite them and causing him to turn around.

My turn!

Name: Clara

Age: 15

Personality: Quiet and aloof at first glance but this is born out of shyness and insecurity. Once more comfortable she becomes a mix between The Gadfly The Stoic and Nice Girl. Is a bit tomboyish enjoying, running and swimming, preferring pants and doesn't mind getting dirty but has a girlier side that enjoys cute thing and has a love of head wear. Has a cynic side that sometimes puts her at odds with her deeply idealistic father but she loves her family all the same and is in fact, closer to her father than her mother.

Abilities: Clara posseses magic and has special powers involving oneiromancy, like reading the hidden meeaning of dreams, enter them and a particulary dangerous power that turns her into a beastly abomination made of the pure chaos of dreams.

Weaknesses: Mainly her low self steem. She's indecisive and can take too long to act. She also believes things that don't involve her or her family are not of her corncern. She has the potential to think strategies but often her impatience gets the better of her and she ends up just throwing powerful spells at things and hope they are resolved.

Goals: She wants to keep her family safe from the dangers of Faery and repay them for everything they had done for her. When she joins the other protagonists she shares their goal of fullfilling 'Quests'. Latter it also includes prooving to herself she's useful and has worth as a person.

Motivation: Clara is convinced she has to be perfect because she was designed to be and thinks, despite being obviously wrong, that her parents and brother or anybody wouldn't want her if she doesn't show she's useful. So she defends them and their bakery from the creatures and fairies of the land and behaves as "good" as she can.

Role: One of the four main characters. At first she's doubtful about their goal but comes around when she realizes she could bring fortune to her family. She starts distrustful of them but becomes more friendly and evolves into a true teammate. She shares the roles of The Big Guy and The Smart Guy with two other characters.

Backstory: Clara is a miracle (a creature born from a spell casted by a fairy to help someone have children) as such she was created as a "perfect" child made of the dreams of her parents. She was conceived by a couple that had just lost their first baby in a miscarriage and were so desesperated to have a child that a fairy took their dreams and gave them a white rose and told them to eat it. She grew up happy, playing around the bakery and helping out until she became curious of her powers. When she discovered she was a miracle and read more about them she developed an insecurity complex, putting more and more effort into being the perfect little girl. At fifteen years old, she joins other three fae to help them deal with magical problems around town.

Tropes:

Action Girl: A teenage fae girl with powerful magic.

Aloof Ally: Starts (seemingly) uncaring of her partners and their objetives.

Badass Bookworm: Loves reading since she was young.

Eldritch Abomination: Her beast form and what she believes is her true nature.

Hair Decorations: Bands, hats, caps, hoods... she loves them all.

Meganeko: Wears round glasses.

Nerd Glasses: Not only does she wears glasses, she has nerdy tastes especially enjoying rol games and books.

The Perfectionist: A rarely seen, but true to life kind. Because she believes she never is good enough she's indecisive and somewhat of a procrastinator.

The Quiet One: Normally speaks little

Shrinking Violet: Her lack of self confidence leads to her being very uncomfortable with strangers, which combined with her desire to be well behaved leads to her serious and somewhat cold personality.

The Stoic: Shows little emotion keeping calm and serious most of the time.

Tomboy with a Girly Streak.

Edited by Winterbird on Dec 26th 2020 at 3:04:08 AM

Edited by krimzonflygon2 on Jan 3rd 2021 at 1:19:23 AM

@Clara

Interesting: funny enough, reading about being this nerdy, adorkable, perfectionist bookworm with magical powers I couldn't help but think of Twilight Sparkle. But then I read into it a bit more and she seemed more Raven, what with the inhuman side to her and the aloofness. Her kind of character seems to shine best when contrasted with others, so I'll have to read a bit more on them in order to get a true grasp of her role in the story: alone, she strikes me as the kind of character who would grind to a halt and just read quietly. That's not a knock against her or anything, it's just a natural part of her characterization: the loner forced to interact.

Anyhow, here's another character from Woodstock Monsters (finally came up with a friggin' name for it), a Visual Novel I'm working on. Along with Jackie, Saoirse and Praline, mentioned a page or two back, I've added another character: the Cat Girl Marzipan Schrader.

Name: Marzipan 'Marzi' Schrader

• Animal Jingoism: Averted: Not only is she friends with Jackie, she actually owns a loyal hunting dog: a Labrador retriever named Monarch.
• Annoying Laugh: Has a bad tendency to snort if she starts laughing too hard.
• Berserk Button: The Village People: not only does she not like their songs period, they invariably get stuck in her head after hearing only a few notes. They are inexplicably the only band that has this effect on her.
• Butch Lesbian: A cop, outdoorsy, short hair, dresses in pants and t-shirts.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Marzi is initially just shown to be a friend of Jackie's who goes hunting with her a few times, then hangs out with her and Praline when at the range. At the end of the story, though, Jackie sets Marzi up on a date with Praline, and Praline's credit photos show the two getting closer and closer before a final one shows them tying the knot.
• Disco Dan: A milder case in that it only extends to her taste in music: she'd be hard pressed to name a single modern song she likes, and owns an impressive collection of vinyls from the 60s and 70s.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": Chuckles that she's not Officer Schrader' unless she's arresting someone when Praline addresses her as such: she tells her to call her 'Marzi'.
• Dream-Crushing Handicap: An embarrassingly minor one, to make it even worse: her dream of becoming a Marine was brought to a halt by a bee allergy.
• Edible Theme Naming: In keeping with the Nekopara inspiration of the catgirls, Marzipan is named after a candy.
• Fiery Redhead: She's good at keeping her temper under control, but said temper is volcanic when she reaches her Rage Breaking Point.
• Punctuated Pounding: Or rather, punctuated perforating as she slings arrow after arrow into a picture of her ex.

• The Straight and Arrow Path: While she uses shotguns for the game she has to, like waterfowl, she’s primarily a bowhunter, and a very good one. It's actually one of the reasons she keeps her hair short.
• Token Religious Teammate: The only character of the main ones who actually goes to church.

Edited by krimzonflygon2 on Sep 16th 2021 at 4:52:22 AM

Not much to add here, Marzi seems like a likable, fun and well rounded character. I don't think you need to change anything about her.

Edited by Winterbird on Jan 3rd 2021 at 10:56:36 AM

>Is a cat girl

>Owns a hunting dog

>MFW◊

I'm only just now learning about your visual novel, so pardon my ignorance. No doubt it makes plenty of sense in the proper context; still, as an outsider looking in — i.e. initially assuming that they're more on the level of Fox McCloud than Chocola — it's quite the image. Or maybe one of those Mickey Mouse/Pluto situations.

Anyway, getting back to business. Without the visual novel in front of me, it's hard to make sweeping, final judgments on Marzi. But based on what's here? She seems like a pretty cool person to be around. Kind of a dork, what with her laugh and Village People quirk, but in a good way — and a way that's easy to sidestep once she's on-duty. Though I guess that's part of the charm of the character. That "gap moe" thing, ostensibly.

I do wonder how well she mingles and synergizes with the rest of the cast — which isn't to say she sounds like a misfit, of course. It's just that I can imagine there being some underlying tension there; between her being a cop and having a violent (albeit well-tamed) temper, it's not hard to visualize scenarios where people, close to her or far away, are afraid of her or otherwise distrustful. Then again, I'm probably massively overthinking things (as I'm wont to do), especially for a slice of life story. Worst case scenario, she's more Robert Barone than anything. Only with cat ears, I guess. Oof, now THAT'S an image and a half.

Also, the visual of Marzi getting married is the cutest thing I'll (metaphorically) see all day. So yeah, solid character with lots of ways to play her — though I'm sure you've already got plenty of plans set. In which case? Good jorb.

====================================

Well, guess I'm up. Once again, I'm showcasing a character from a freshly-uploaded and completed work I've got (points feverishly at link in signature, then bursts into flames 3.8 seconds later). He's the #2 of the story, though his tale has a hard-to-dismiss link to the #1 leading lady. For convenience's sake, I'll go ahead and link to the post I made on her a while back; it's not required reading, but it's there if you want/need it.

Anyway, HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!

Name: Chase Haywood

Theme Song (for funsies): "Never Surrender" by Lion

Appearance:

11 years old, though you wouldn't be able to guess based on his paltry height of 3'6" (with a bony build to match). Earns a lot of stray looks while roaming the streets of Santa Infierno, thanks to his blue hair — dyed, of course — and striking amber eyes, prone to burning bright like a wildfire. No matter how hot it tends to get outside, it's not uncommon to see him in an overlarge hoodie (albeit alongside cargo shorts), and some high-tops to try masking his vertically-challenged nature. Inside or out, he's pretty much never seen without his "lucky hat", a black beanie capped with a pair of flying white jets.

All in all, Strong Family Resemblance is comfortably averted — which is kind of a given, since his mom is roughly 16 times his size. And still growing.

Personality:

Take two tablespoons of Aladdin, one tablespoon of Huey Freeman, a pinch of Frylock, and a light dusting of Daria. Add to two cups of The Punisher, then shake well, serve, and enjoy. (Read: try not to die.)

All his records may say he's 11, but Chase rarely acts the part. On his best days, he's a fast-talking, smirk-wearing smart aleck who'll throw shade like a full-to-bursting dodgeball. He's got no problems speaking his mind or calling out people who he thinks deserves it; whether it's done "jokingly" or with a deathly-serious bent is up to a dice roll. Despite his youth, he speaks with a shocking amount of confidence and clarity of thought. For convenience's sake, he'd rather hide the full depths of his intelligence (which is plenty, to be sure), and he's got no problems pretending to be a joker.

The emphasis, of course, is on "pretending". Underneath his snark and swagger beats a red-hot heart. Hopelessly driven by passion and ambition, Chase prowls the streets of Santa Infierno — and takes on crooks twice his size — to do what he thinks is right, no matter what lows he has to stoop to. That chip on his shoulder tends to make him as hot-headed as he is cynical, but he's not just full of toothless bluster; once he peels off his mask, you'll be feeling every last degree of that rage burning inside him.

Role in the Plot:

Though he doesn't show up until the fourth chapter (barring some passing implications), he's the deuteragonist of the story, while his mother, Rosie, takes on the leading role. Events in their past led to the two of them becoming estranged, and haven't seen each other in about five years. That's still largely the case throughout the story; despite a brief meeting in Chapter 7, the two of them go their own way and handle their own challenges until a proper reunion near the end of the second act, and a full-on partnership throughout the third. Rosie's story is about her dealing with the ramifications of being a 50-foot (and beyond) woman, with her wish to be a force for good clashing with her unchecked destructive power, acting as a lightning rod for the baddies' evil plan, and trying to win over the people of Santa-In — all while fighting off street soldiers armed with weapons pulled straight from a sci-fi movie, up to and including Humongous Mecha.

Chase's plot line is more about stealth, subterfuge, and intelligence gathering — which shouldn't come as a surprise, since it's hard to imagine a stories-tall woman sneaking through enemy strongholds. While he's done enough digging beforehand to know the villains who need targeting — chief among them, the eternally-sketchy Mayor Pierce — there are still mysteries that need solving, and the means to thwart Team Bad Guys' plan needs discovering. With his mind and heart alike, Chase ends up becoming crucial despite his flimsy form. He's the playmaker. The schemer. The mover-and-shaker, for good or ill.

Mostly for ill. But that's neither here nor there.

Powers and Abilities:

Chase doesn't have his mother's superhuman strength, durability, or size. No one else has any absurd powers/stats in-universe, so they have to compensate — and be able to put up a fight — by relying on the weapons and tech created by "Kernels", AKA the cuboid gadgets Pierce and his men are selling. Again, Chase doesn't have that tech. So what does he have? A decent bag of tricks. Literally.

He's almost never seen without a sling bag strapped to his back; inside it, he's got all sorts of gadgets, tools, and knickknacks to help him get into (and occasionally out of) trouble, gathering evidence along the way. His weapon of choice? A slingshot he can use pretty effectively. Short or not, Chase is good at slinking around enemy locales undetected. In some cases, he doesn't even have to go that far; with his wits and words, it's not uncommon for him to con adults into giving him exactly what he wants.

Oh, and he's also really good at sounding like Danny DeVito.

Weaknesses:

By leaps and bounds, Chase is the weakest member of the cast. Any fight that has him pitted against another person, without his gear to back him up or someone to save him at the last second, ends with him utterly mangled — and with his opponent left unharmed. Note that this is true if he clashes with even an average-sized adult, in a story that features laser guns, tanks, choppers, and the odd mecha. Don't count on him in a fight.

Regardless, Chase's biggest weakness might just be Chase himself. He's hopelessly, inexorably driven by his own sense of justice, which puts him at odds with a world he refuses to accept as-is. That lack of chill makes him prone to lashing out once his mask of smarm cracks; when he does — when he lets his passion run wild — he tends to land himself and others in trouble. If he survives? You'll really start to wonder if he's a kid at heart, or something far worse.

Motivation:

Skull Face, you wanna take this one?

Certainly, Chase wants to bring justice back to Santa-In; it just so happens that doing so is welded to his grudge against Pierce. For reasons he's reluctant to reveal, Chase hates the mayor for more than being a scheming scumbag whose reckless arms deals are perforating the city he presides over. The boy's out for revenge, and is willing to do whatever it takes to claim it. Notably, that means clashing with Pierce's top men, AKA the REAL villains making the mayor's chaotic campaign possible: the soldier with a dark dream, Baldwin, and the mysterious hooded poet, Stalk.

Villains or otherwise, Chase's overarching goal is basically a dream of his own: to hold command over the criminal underworld of Santa-In. He believes, earnestly, that by ruling from the shadows, he can put a leash on the myriad crooks and force them to clean up their acts, and thus make the city a safer place for all. Time will tell if he becomes the gangstar he wants to be...or if said city gets burned well beforehand.

Relevant Tropes:

• Kid Hero: Having only just started the sixth grade, he's firmly in this territory — though he's not as squeaky-clean an example as most. His pragmatic approach to saving Santa-In means that he does a lot of sneaking around, lying, stealing, and general troublemaking. His targets are (usually) the crooks and thugs infesting his town, but dirty deeds done dirt cheap are his jam.
• Nice Hat: Almost never seen without it, to the point where he'll sleep in it. Part of that's because it helps him hide a decisive cowlick sticking out of his crown. Part of it is because it's a tragic keepsake — one from a broken set of two.
• Catchphrase: "No doubt." He affixes it to so many sentences (in the middle or at the end), it's close to being a Verbal Tic. You can probably guess why, but don't. It'd make him feel better.
• The Napoleon: YES. He's prone to throwing out snark and barbs, but it doesn't take much to push his buttons.
• The Cynic: He doesn't have a very high opinion of most things. It's telling that his core mission isn't to clean up the streets of Santa Infierno, but to control the dirt as its new (allegedly noble) boss. As bitter and sardonic as he can be, there's still a thirst for justice that drives him, and a belief that it can still be dished out — even if it means putting plenty of "shitty adults" in their place.
• Deadpan Snarker: You know it.
  Chase: I'm so glad I get to have face-to-face time with the bastard who tried to blow me up with a giant robot.
  Grim: Yeah. I guess I screwed up, huh? Sorry.
  Chase: Gee, thanks. That makes it all better.
• Perpetual Frowner: The best you'll likely get out of him is a smug smirk — rare in its own right, and prone to taking on a bitter edge soon after. Incidentally, he's not even aware of his constant frowning, and would likely stay that way if not for getting called out on it two thirds of the way into the story.
• Street Smart: Considering that he could lose a fight with a soggy grocery bag, this is his saving grace. He's able to con seasoned gangsters into bending at the knee, distract and hamstring goons as he sneaks through their hideouts like a preteen Solid Snake, and generally follow through on schemes that, while elaborate, put him within spitting distance of his ambitions. He's distressingly good at what he does — which is a problem when he does it to people on the right side of the law.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Of a sort. He's smart enough to handle all of his schoolwork and then some, what with his casual mention of things like tithes and autocracies. It's just that he'd rather roam the city "doing work" instead of hunkering down and finishing (or starting) his homework, unless he absolutely has to for appearance's sake. Or, you know, his grade point average.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Part of Chase's plan to take over the criminal underworld involves getting in the good graces of (and occasionally stealing from) the gangs around town. Thing is, most of the time that involves him becoming their gofer, and never actually getting to be an official member. Beyond that? There aren't a lot of characters willing to compliment or congratulate him for any reason, "job well done" or otherwise. Usually, they'll just make fun of him or call him short. It really says a lot when the only one who'd give him a pat on the back is his mom, Rosie — which is ill-advised when she can clap the average sedan into a pancake.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He may be a grumpy, hot-headed, wannabe gangster, but underneath all his bluster and rage, there's still a good person deep down. While it contrasts severely with his image, he'll at least make an attempt to get along and bond with others — his massive mother chief among them, given their years-long estrangement. It's just that being a nice guy is hard for him, resulting in a LOT of awkwardness from our boy in blue.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Color scheme aside, he's the red oni to pretty much every other character in the cast, making Rosie blue by relativity. While he's a tactician who relies on tricks and techniques, he's impulsive enough to have a stiff breeze push him to action, even if it means turning his back on others. Rosie is...not a tactician, dependent on unrivaled size and power to defeat the baddie/mecha du jour. Despite that, she's a pure, and pure-hearted, example of a Gentle Giant: spirited, yes, but routinely friendly, calm, patient, open-minded, and eager to help anyone in her field of vision. It goes without saying, but the two of them together accomplish more than what either of them could do on their own.
• Fan Boy: Of the Metal-Bravers franchise, an oft-rebooted, 80s-born expy of Transformers with a healthy sprinkling of Power Rangers. He's got plenty of models in his mosh pit of a room, and even his hat is merchandise from the series. While he tries to play it off as kid stuff he's not into, Rosie presses the subject...and makes him go into nerd mode, gushing about the show for minutes on end. Once he realizes what he did, he takes to it poorly.
  Chase: I have to burn my merch. All of it. It's the only way to detox and purify.
  Rosie: Ya don't have to go that far, sweetie.
  Chase: Burn it all. It's the only way. Burn it all. Burn it all, and be free.
  Rosie: Ya sure?
  Chase: Fire solves everything. Even nerdiness. Especially nerdiness.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Xiaohui "Ash" Wong. She goes along with Chase's schemes as both a snark-happy troll and his partner in crime, gathering/building the tools he uses on his street escapades (for a price). She'll gladly laugh in his face when the chance arises, but on occasion she'll be his voice of reason. Rosie theorizes that she actually cares for Chase, but the boy shrugs it off. As it turns out, Rosie has it exactly right.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Has one with Luca "Lou" Abbadelli, Ash's legal guardian and (reluctantly, still) a member of the Tempesta gang. While Chase has tapped Lou multiple times to become an official member, their relationship isn't all that dissimilar to the one between Chase and Ash (or Lou and Ash, for that matter), though the gangster's a lot easier to rattle or leave flustered. Despite that, Lou's the closest thing to a father Chase has, and tries on multiple occasions to give him crucial, man-to-man life advice. And lollipops. Incidentally, Chase's bond with Lou is much stronger and smoother than with his own...
• Parental Substitute: Has one in Kira, who's been looking after him for years now. Saying they don't get along is like saying Neptune is a little far away; while they're not at each other's throats 24/7, virtually all of their thoughts, opinions, preferences, and ideals are in direct opposition. (By extension, Kira is an even bluer oni than most.) Both characters are well aware of the sheer tension between them, and that it wouldn't take much for their uneasy peace to shatter — partly because of their pasts with Rosie, though for different reasons.
• Affection-Hating Kid: True to his airs of toughness, Chase isn't very receptive to the love and care he gets from Kira...though part of that comes from her obsessive over-parenting, and part from the lavish (if sterile and stifling) lifestyle she's desperate to sell him on. Rosie fares better once they reunite, though that's owed to Chase steadily becoming more open to reconnecting as he witnesses the gentle giantess' good deeds and cheer from afar. And of course, to bury the memories of that day five years ago.
• You're Not My Mother: Says a variant of this, inevitably. Following the events of a Wham Episode with his blood mother facing her darkest hour (up to that point, at least), Kira pulls the boy back home and tries to have a nice dinner with him and her beau...only to press all of his berserk buttons in one conversation, the chief one being agreeing with Pierce's actions/efforts to take down Rosie. Chase very nearly disowns her on the spot.
• Kid with the Leash: Chase reasons — correctly — that if there's anyone who can control and command a 50-foot (and more...WAY more) woman, it's her son. While that's his initial intention, seeing her goodness in action and his lingering desire to be with his mom again turns their relationship from strictly business into a genuine (if awkward) partnership and bond. That said, when Pierce's plans make things hit the fan, Chase is still willing to use Rosie as a threat and bargaining chip, exploiting her inherent Mama Bear nature — which backfires horribly.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: He may come off as a cocky brat at times, but cut a little deeper and you'll find a level of anger and hatred that grown men couldn't reproduce — and worse yet, the resolve to follow through on it. To wit: when the chips are down, Chase decides to take things into his own hands...and confront Mayor Pierce to outright MURDER HIM. He misses his chance to do so, but not for lack of trying. Notably, there's this exchange:
  Kira: Tell me. What's the most important thing in the world?
  Chase: Power.
  Kira: Try again.
  Chase: (beat) (shrugs)
• It's Personal: From his first chapter on, Chase makes it clear that he's just as focused on ousting Pierce from office — and his seat amongst the city's criminal overlords — as he is on protecting his hometown. The reason (besides poisoning Santa-In with crime and violence for profit, AND routinely harassing his blood mother)? As it so happens, Chase spent three years living on the streets, and with a gang he learned to call his family. Then Pierce and his goons got involved and wiped that gang out, from Chase's cool-headed mentor to his best friend — and owner of the second black beanie — Julio, who was also the same age at the time to boot. Chase only managed to survive the gang's wipeout by way of hiding in relative safety (and shame later on), while Julio rushed in to play hero and paid for it. While Chase got found and adopted by Kira shortly after, the boy was never the same again.
• I Hate Past Me: There may be bite behind his bark (however small), but deep down Chase is desperate to escape the boy he was just a few years ago. The events that shaped him into what he's become in the present have convinced him that in the good old days, he was a weak, cowardly, selfish mama's boy, who constantly doubted himself and ran/hid away when things got tough. That ended up saving his life on multiple occasions, but it's left scars on his pride that haven't healed.
• Not So Different: He's not all that dissimilar from the villains, Pierce in particular. Both of them are piss-poor fighters who need others to brawl on their behalf, but nonetheless want control over the criminal underworld. Both are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed, and have no problems breaking the rules to do so. Both tend to act cocky and composed, but shaking them up is pretty easy to do. Both of them are keen to use Rosie for their own ends — Pierce wants Rosie, giant woman that she is, to become a PR disaster big enough (literally) to provide a smokescreen for his illegal acts, while Chase wants her to be the muscle allowing/protecting his criminal empire to-be. And, crucially, both of them make decisions that set the stage for the climax...which, inevitably, drag Rosie through the mud.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: His last scene in the story ends with his tough guy mask breaking, and him seizing Kira in a hug — then sobbing uncontrollably into her chest. You can probably guess why.
• When He Smiles: Gets in exactly one over the course of the entire story, but it's a doozy.

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And that's about all I've got for now. (Good thing, too, because making these posts takes a LOT longer than you'd expect. Or hope.) Feel free to give me your thoughts on the character — reactions, observations, critiques, suggestions, whatever. I'm hungry for data and feedback.

Thanks in advance. And remember, you can read my story for free, in its entirety, via the link in my signature. Or THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. Just throwing that out there. Because as I'm sure you're all aware, vindication for one's efforts is preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty coooooooooooooooooool.

Edited by Voltech44 on Jan 12th 2021 at 6:02:29 AM

Chase sounds like a fun character. Dark and flawed, but with enough strengths to make him seem surprisingly likable for an 11-year old temper bomb. It's also neat how small and weak he is, which in turn makes him a good spy despite his hot head.

@Voltek

Well of course she has a hunting dog! When she goes duck hunting it's not like SHE'S about to jump in after her kills.

Yes, the Cat Girls of the story are Little Bit Beastly: the 'Jackie' mentioned as one of her friends? An anubis: jackal ears and tail. She's not a Beast Man...woman.

Anyhow...

If you want an idea of what her temper is like, think Sunset Shimmer: she rarely gets physical when provoked, but she will blow up at a poor, undeserving sap who happens to be in the wrong place in the wrong time.

She'll have been simmering in a bad mood, trying to keep it under control, one of her fellow officers will ask if she's okay and she'll bellow at him that she's fine, alright?!? LEAVE ME ALONE!

And then she'll facepalm when she realizes she did it again.

The last time she did get physical with someone was when she found out that her first girlfriend Bon-Bon was as mentioned, cheating on her with six other women. Bon-Bon was dragged from Marzi's home in a headlock, and then fled the scene amidst a hail of her belongings thrown from the second floor.

Yeah, that makes sense. Like I said, I'm a late arrival — though I appreciate both the elaboration and the nod to her inner feline. Likewise, now I've got a better picture of her temper. Not quite a raging demon, and more importantly, someone who has the sense to realize when her anger can cause some real problems. Good to know.

Also, jackal girls? I'm remarkably okay with that.

Thanks for the response. I won't lie, though: "fun" is not the first word I expected to hear someone use to describe Chase, but I'll take it. Not sure he would take it if you said as much to him, what with the whole tough guy act he's desperate to cultivate. Then again, it's not hard to imagine him blushing at the thought, sooooooooooooooooo...I'll meet you halfway and say it's fun to watch him triumph and bumble. As it should be.

I mean, he's the sort of character I consider fun at least :P

Are work in progresses allowed for this?

Yeah, why not?

Say, am I allowed to post factions or general fictional races/species here? Because I have one that's pretty much integral to my story, and will become relevant to my characters that I'll reveal later.

We have a Nation Critique Thread for more worldbuilding-oriented stuff, just FYI.