Character info

Character name: Flynn Scifo
Canon: Tales of Vesperia (Definitive Edition)
Canon point & release date: End-game, 2019
History: Right here
Powers (no more than 150 words): :(

Personality

What is your character most afraid of? How are they defined by this fear? (200-300 wordswords)

Flynn is largely defined by his fears. He's scared of a lot of things: failure, dying in obscurity, letting his community (and Yuri) down, being "wrong." But his biggest fear, the thing that drives him, the thing informing all his own self-destructive masking behaviors, is his fear of rejection. Flynn is terrified of being wrong, yes, but he's more terrified of the consequences of being wrong: that everyone will turn their backs on him, that he will be alone and unloved. The reasons for this start way back in his childhood, like all good deep core fears, but they've piled up like bricks over the years, and informed more or less every one of Flynn's choices. He tries to be "good" nbecause his mother and his father both considered that important, and had strict definitions of good and bad. Later, when he figures that the only way to really help people and put a stop to the constant injustice in his life is to become a knight, he immediately figures that he has to be the best knight possible, and spends years crafting an entirely different persona so that he won't be rejected by the knights whose respect he needs. He figures if he can just work through the best way to act in any given social situation, then he'll always have some kind of place, and some kind of acceptance.

His fear even helps drive a wedge between himself and Yuri: he's so sensitive to the idea of being rejected by the person who's become the most important to him that he sees Yuri's rejection of the knights as a whole as a rejection of him, and of the dream they were working toward together.

What is your character's greatest desire? How are they defined by this desire? (200-300 words words)

A neat foil to Flynn's deep-seated fear of rejection is the thing he wants most in the world: to be loved and accepted. He'd tell anyone who asked a different desire. He'd say he wants to help people, that he wants to make a better world and create a justice system that works for everyone. He wants to protect people and help to make their lives better so no one else has to make the kinds of choices he had to make when he was a kid.

And that's all true, but again, the reason behind all those things is that at his core, Flynn wants desperately to be good, which in his mind, means being loved. He clings to whatever ideal he sets for himself—a heroic knight, a protector of the people, a confident and status-quo-breaking Knight Captain—and measures himself constantly against a yardstick of goodness that exists mostly in his own head. Of course, he can't ever live up to those ideals. They're perfect pinnacles, unachieveable, but Flynn believes that working toward them is what makes you virtuous, and if you're virtuous, he's sure, then people will like you and maybe even love you. That isn't the only reason for his lofty ideals and the long-term goals of changing the knights that have given shape to his life—he'd tell you that he wants those things because those things are Right and because no one should have to live with the system as it is now—but it's the biggest reason why it has to be him doing those things, and why no matter what he does, it will never be enough.

What is your character's most defining memory or relationship? How are they defined by this relationship? (200-300 words)

In the immortal words of Captain Leblanc: YURIIII LOWELLLLLLLLL!

Yuri Lowell is Flynn's best friend and the other side of his proverbial narrative coin. He is the dark to Flynn's light, the moon to Flynn's sun, the cat to his dog. Yuri holds the same deep core beliefs as Flynn (fairness, that the needs of the many matter, that people's lives are important) but acts on them in very different ways. He was the first person to reach out to Flynn to befriend him when they were children, and they were inseparable after that. They have shaped each other, moment by moment, into the people they are today. Yuri gave him a direction and a purpose for the anger Flynn felt after his parents died, taken from him by a world that did not value their lives because of their social class. Flynn was lost in that anger until Yuri showed him why it happened, and after that Flynn dedicated himself to changing that world so that no one would ever have to experience that. They joined the knights together. They fought for their dreams together, Flynn stuck up for Yuri to their superiors, and when Yuri left the knights, Flynn took it harder than he even knew at the time. He talks about Yuri constantly, to everyone, all the time, because Yuri is his guiding star and his best friend and his other half.

How will not having memories change your character? What core personality traits, if any, will change? How? (200-300 words)

Without his memories telling him why he needs to be so polite and locked down all the time, Flynn is going to be a hell of a lot less repressed. He's so heavily informed by his context—what the people around him want from him, what kind of person they want or need him to be, what kind of role he needs to play—that removing that context is like stripping him of his armor and letting his body finally have the freedom to move. Everything will be exaggerated without the weight of his pointed repression to keep it down. Flynn will be much more visibly emotive. The core of him won't change at all—he'll still be the same driven, opinionated man with a heart overfull of idealism and the will to do something about it—but everything that was keeping that core weighed down and kept underwater will be gone. The biggest change will be in Flynn's general manners with new people. He won't suddenly turn into a rude asshole, but he had to learn how to be as polite and restrained as he is in the game, and with that gone he'll be much more willing to tell people how he feels and what he thinks about any given thing.

Thread samples:
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Memories

You have 10 memory points. How will you use them?
Relationship core with Yuri: 2 points.
The memory of his long friendship with Yuri. Flynn will remember the fact that there is someone he grew up with who is very important to him. He will know that they spent the bulk of their time together, that this person was his best friend and someone he did everything with, and that he wanted to do something for this person to make their life better. All the feelings that come with this relationship, none of the details!

Swordsmanship skills: 3 points.
All his many years of training, both with his father and Yuri and then with the knights, at using a sword. Flynn will essentially have the same mastery of swords that he does in the game, though he won't remember any battle magic or any of his artes.

Lower Quarter upbringing: 2 points.
The vague knowledge and memory of growing up in the poor part of a rich city, and more or less a sense of distrust around power and authority.

Jail: 2 points.
Flynn remembers a particular night where he and his Important Person were arrested for something that they shouldn't have been brought in for. They were trying to defend someone in the Lower Quarter from being unjustly hassled by a knight, got too heated and ended up starting a fight with the knight about it, and got tossed in jail for a night for their efforts.

Orphan: 1 point.
Flynn knows his parents are dead.

Player info

Name: Jordan
Pronouns: they/them
Age: 30
Contact: interplanetary
Permissions: Here

Link to invite: it's me ya boy