[father]

MY BEAUTIFUL SON

heres an updated pic of his human form

[father]

xxxxxJump forward one space, run ahead three to avoid the falling rocks. Double tap A to powerkick through the crack in the wall. A hole appears, leading the main character to the maze's end. The treasure chest, gilded in gold and jewels, shines at the end of the final cave under the light of the lantern dangling at the avatar's side. The hero's heart beat with each step forward, pounding to the rhythm of the background music, chiming its catchy 8 bit tune until-- silence.

xxxxxA cutscene, initiated.

xxxxxOn screen, the player's avatar looks around, confused. Finding nothing, they reach forward, ready to reap their rewards and indulge in endgame delights. Light, bright enough to make a player's eyes hurt, flashes across the screen. A tinny laugh echoes through the handheld system's speakers. The player inhales deeply, anticipation and excitement curling in his gut as the final boss twirls into view.

xxxxxAs the final monologue of the game pounds through the speakers, Cainan finds himself laughing giddily to himself. He remembered how many tries it took the voice actress to record her lines, getting the nastiness in her voice just right as the conflict between hero and villain, good and evil, came to its boiling point. He and the actress had stayed in the studio until well after hours, fighting to meet tight deadlines and stay awake on coffee alone.

xxxxxReminiscing nearly makes Cainan miss the opening attack of the battle sequence. Having been on the team to test and troubleshoot the game before it hit the shelves, he knew this fight like the back of his hand. Use left trigger to activate shield. Press B to rebound her spells. Double tap A to knock her on her feet. Press Y to kick her while she's down. Repeat until she changes form, initiating stage two.

xxxxxStage two was another story entirely. The villain's attacks would be completely random, ranging from any attack the avatar had faced throughout the entirety of the game. She could unleash a one-hit kill, à la one of the previous bosses, or she could reenact a measly punch from one of the very first enemies encountered. It was Cainan's idea to code this into the game. He'd fought tooth and nail with his producers, who argued that no one would buy the game due to the uncertainty of such a fight. He insisted however, that very uncertainty was what would make the game appealing. The thrill of a difficult task, the adrenaline rush when one is genuinely challenged, the tremors in a player's hands when they narrowly dodge an attack that would've spelled their end, reminding them to keep on their toes!

xxxxxCainan inhaled deeply, then exhaled, grinning madly to himself as he sat alone in the dark of his apartment in the dead of night, playing a game he'd poured months of sweat, tears and heartache into molding. Cainan knew games. He knew what was fun. He would never let a game be released with his name on it if it wasn't a thrill.

xxxxxThe final boss released her next attack. The avatar, unable to outrun the shockwave, fell to the ground, defeated.

xxxxxWell, Cainan knew games, but he never claimed to be good at them.

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Full Name: Cainan Dekar Rom

Nickname: C.D. Rom - given to him during his brief stint as a computer gamer. Unable to make it past the character creation stage of The Sims, he quickly gave up but the nickname stuck.

Gender + Pronouns: Male, he/him

Occupation: Arcade owner, video game concept artist (stage and character designer, design director), sock puppet engineer

Age: 32

Birthday: November 15th

Zodiacs: Scorpio, Pig

Hobbies:

-Character and stage design (seven years' job experience at his current company, is ranked 10th in the world in Super Mario Maker)
-Personal design projects (dating sims)
-Freelance art work
-Sock collecting
-Sock puppet theatre (a dying art)
-Knitting
-Collecting old video game cases (NOT the games themselves)
-Appreciating but criticizing movies/pop culture
-People drawing watching

Personality:

Pride - Games, stages, characters, designs, kitting, socks. Anything with Cainan's name on it becomes a metaphorical extension of himself-- perfect. An insult to his interests is a personal attack on Cainan himself. Unafraid to bare his fangs in retaliation, one would bode well to watch what they say in his presence.

Distant and Avoidant - Approval means everything, whether or not a design is accepted, a proposal passes, or a project begins. Approval from others is what got Cainan his job. Interacting with people, getting their attention, and garnering their respect was what fueled his motivation to see work through to the end. However, he just can't seem to get the hang of keeping friends. What is texting? Are you supposed to reply back? By hang out you mean like going somewhere together? Cainan's avoidance of meaningful interactions make relationships hard to come by.

Sympathetic - Crunch time meant working after hours, body running on whatever he'd had for lunch and a gallon of sweetened coffee. Lunch was thirteen hours ago. No one in the studio could remember what they had even eaten. All focus pinpointed on getting the final drafts of stage concept art rendered, edited, and printed. One girl, a new team member fresh out of art school and the youngest of the team, clutched her head as if it were tearing in two. Her eyes, bloodshot, turned pleadingly to Cainan, team supervisor. She still had a whole illustration to begin and only four hours remained. Cainan, heart strings tugging, shooed her out of her chair. Go sleep, he could take over.

Giddy Glee - The final product, in his hands. His game, boxed in plastic wrap, had hit the shelves that morning. He gazed at the cover, an illustration of the main character running through what became the home field. Tangible results made his heart soar. Seeing people pour in and out of the hole-in-the-wall game store just to pick up their preorders made him walk out of the shop with a spring in his step and a grin untamable.

Trivia:

-cried in the theater when he first saw Wreck-It Ralph
-once knit a scarf six feet long for one of his coworkers
-is allergic to all nuts
-can't fall asleep without something covering his head- whether it be a pillow or his cat.
-was born without vocal chords, had a mechanical substitute implanted
-refuses to upgrade his voice chip so he sounds like an old vocaloid/Microsoft Sam when speaking

xxxxxSo, his first independent game pitch hadn't exactly gone smoothly. Big deal. Cainan was a big boy, an adult, he could deal with it. Trees, leafless as winter's talons creeped ever closer to taking hold, passed by in a blur as his feet unevenly slapped against concrete in his rush. A blue trashcan on the street corner, color fading along with the painted shopfront it rested near from overexposure to the sun, overflowed with discarded waste as Cainan, agitated, did not notice as he stepped on top of crinkly wrappers.

xxxxx"Dealing with it" never quelled the confidence-crushing sting of a unanimous "no." The barren path Cainan walked from C.H.O.R.D.GaMES' studio building seemed more like a yellow brick road of shame than a sidewalk.

xxxxxBut it was fine, he told himself. This sort of rejection always happened in the world of game dev. Brilliance was never recognized right from the outset. Cainan steeled himself against the bone-chilling temperatures, hiking his shoulders up as he barreled through the headwind like a lion in a sandstorm. He was not running home with his tail between his legs to the sanctuary of his day job, his precious arcade. No, sirree, nuh uh, no way. Cainan Dekar Rom never ran away. He would just waste some time, grind out some new levels in Mario Maker while his producers stewed over his pitch until they finally saw the light. Cainan did not create bad ideas. Cainan had never once in his life pitched a concept that would not sell. His games were the start of the revolution of new age design that would take the gaming world by storm.

xxxxxPerhaps the world just wasn't ready for a sock puppet-centered dating sim.

xxxxxThe frigid air gave Cainan, who had left the studio with smoke fuming out of his ears, a chance to cool off. He'd poured his heart and soul into his pitch. Socks were cool. They could have any kind of pattern, be it the physical color or the pattern in the stitching. The manilla envelope tucked inside his jacket, protected from the elements, was filled to the brim with sketched proof that one could create a cast as diverse as people. Plans, dark and sinister, slithered in the back of his mind about producing the game on his own time. That wouldn't put much bread on the table, though.

xxxxxHis boss, who'd been breathing down Cainan's neck for the past two months, needed a successful idea by the end of the week. The company needed something new, a spark of life to attract a new demographic of players. Dating simulators, a guilty pleasure, controlled the reins of Cainan's inspiration.

xxxxxInspiration. Perhaps he just needed more of it. While Cainan had found his sock collections inspiring, his boss hadn't, so it was back to the drawing board-- unravelling the sketchbook hidden behind the arcade's ticket prize counter.

Nate
Comic Page

xxxxxThis guy was too calm, too cool, too casual. Cainan watched from behind the prize counter as his patron ran Pacman straight into Blinky's path. Cainan winced as the "Game Over" screen flashed for the twelfth time in the last hour. The mustachioed man walked back to the coin dispenser, digging around in his pockets for money. Cainan sympathetically watched as the poor fool wasted five dollars on twenty coins and lost another hour off his life.

xxxxxThat kind of determination stirred up the gears in the back of Cainan's brain. The type to keep trying, despite odds being against him, despite not having the skill to back his attacks up... The gears in Cainan's head slowly turned as basic plot lines and character interactions cropped up amongst the cobwebs, a faint spark spurring his pencil to life.

Gideon
Comic Page

xxxxxWhenever this particular character paid his arcade a visit Cainan kept one eye trained on him and one hand on the phone ready to speed dial the police. He hadn't committed any crimes on his property. Yet. There was one time Cainan caught him kicking the Punch Out!! machine after it ate his quarter. Such a heinous act was grounds enough to throw his disrespectful butt in jail for a night, but the 911 operator had disagreed.

xxxxxThe teenager bought his coins from the dispenser and set up shop at a zombie shooter. Cainan knew from experience that his annoying presence would be there for hours, until he'd beaten and re-beaten his high score. With the amount of time he spent there, why didn't the kid just move in?

xxxxxCainan tapped his pencil against his sketchpad, snorting. Like he'd ever let that happen.

Levi and Dawn

xxxxxKids made Cainan happy. Whenever young children held birthday parties or just dropped by the arcade for a visit Cainan could feel his grinchly heart grow warmer. Seeing people appreciating the fine art of gaming so early in life gave him hope that future generations would turn out just fine... But then, there were the brats.

xxxxx"But I wanna play skeeball!"
xxxxx"What!? Skeeball is boooring! Are you telling me you're a boring loser?"
xxxxx"S-Skeeball isn't boring...I'm not a loser!"
xxxxx"Skooter, skooter, you're a loser!"

xxxxxCainan watched as the little girl burst into tears in the middle of his arcade. Her companion, presumably her brother, was perched up on a stool playing Sonic. He stuck his tongue out at her and waggled his fingers in his ears. Cainan loved kids. They made him so happy. So abandoning his sketchbook, he approached the girl to console her with kind words and a free game of Skeeball.

Thanks for taking the time to read through my form! It's pretty long so I hope it was enjoyable.
Nate belongs to Sly.Blue, Gideon belongs to sundayrain26, and Dawn and Levi belong to Baigel.
Thanks guys for letting me use them.
Also all art in this form is by me!
Super big shout out to Sly.Blue for helping me with coding and proofreading for me.