Travis Dyne

[The Honeless Beard]

Name: Travis “O’Mite” Dyne
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Hobbies and Interests: outdoors activities, stand up comedy, tabletop roleplay, LGBT politics and history

Appearance: Travis Dyne stands at five foot nine inches, weighs 145lbs, is caucasian with pasty skin, blue eyes, and bleached blonde hair that is growing back in with its natural black colour. He wears big glasses with thick lenses that make his eyes huge due to his nearsightedness. The rims are gold. His nose is thin and on the small side with an upturned tip, his lips are also thin, and he is missing one front tooth and so needs to wear a false one - making it slightly more white than the others.

Travis’ style can mostly be described as archetypically nerdy- he wears loose fitting T-shirts that hang off of him, and jeans that are well-fit with a brown belt. His footwear choices are usually selected for comfort more than style. Travis’ outfit at game start is a green T-Shirt with the phrase Once More With Healing on the front featuring a black cat with a band-aid on it, blue faded jeans, and black skate shoes.

Biography: Born to a surrogate mother that he has no relationship with, Travis was raised by Hansel and Douglas Dyne from the first hour he came into the world He has no other siblings. Hansel ran a fashion blog (called ‘Modern Cowboy’) as a passion while he worked remotely at a call centre, but Douglas brought in the real money of the family working as a lawyer - specialising in infidelity cases. When he was adopted, Hansel and Douglas had been committed partners for five years, and Hansel changed his name legally to Dyne in 2007. Because of the dual income, Travis grew up in the upper-middle class of the socio-economic scale while also being very in-tune with culture - which was Hansel’s priority for Travis all throughout childhood. Hansel and Douglas were very active in LGBT spaces, which made it important to them to educate Travis in their own interests as it aligned with LGBT culture - giving Travis a lifelong perspective and passion for the political side of LGBT activism. Travis considers himself a staunch ally, and identifies as straight - if he is asked to identify as anything at all.

Travis’ childhood was uneventful - he did well in school but didn’t stand out, his parents teaching him that he’d need education as a tool, but it was never going to be his passion. Douglas had several tirades throughout Travis’ childhood in which he claimed that the school system was changing and shaping history, but learned that these tirades were translating to Travis challenging schoolteachers by repeating him verbatim - often slipping into an approximation of Douglas’ voice - and these rants were a cause of concern amidst Travis’ schoolteachers. While Hansel usually was the one to diffuse the situation and teach Travis about the appropriate time and place, Douglas was mortified that Travis singled himself out using his words and the rants were avoided in front of Travis for the most part.

This, however, led to Travis’ first true love: stand up comedy. Travis enjoyed playing the part of the class clown - gaining attention for his slowly growing catalogue of silly voices and comedic bits that he would workshop and expand on throughout the school year. His brain was a rolodex of random phrases or people he’d met, that he’d adapt into characters to slip into whenever goofing around with his friends. As soon as his school had a talent show, Travis would sign up immediately and do five minute sets - they bombed early on, but got quite good as he grew older and honed his craft.

This naturally progressed even further into Tabletop Roleplaying Games, where Travis found roleplaying at games to be a good place to hone these impressions and to expand upon backstories of characters. His growing rolodex of silly voices made him a natural Game Master, even if his games were messy, ill-planned, and he never got the hang of the system he tried - his brain just didn’t absorb numbers or mechanics well enough. He loved being a player, though, and would often make the goofiest character possible and delight into shaping them to a more serious tract.

Hansel preferred to take Travis on fishing trips whenever possible, deciding that Travis’ life and childhood was filled with too many buildings and city living. These trips would often span days at a time - they’d go most frequently in the summer, with Douglas sometimes tagging along (though he was never one for the outdoors stuff and hated the cold). They’d rent boats or walk rivers, and together they’ve tried most kinds of fishing. Travis adores being in the outdoors as a result, despite the fact that he burns rather quickly in direct sunlight, and knows his way around water very well. His frail build tends to leave him on the outside looking in during physical activities, which necessitated lots of breaks for water - which his father took advantage of to form a strong bond with his son.

Travis finds himself in many different circles, and finds friends easily. He’s well liked in most circles, though some do find his incessant bits and seeming inability to take himself seriously hard to take in large doses. As a result he finds himself having few close friends, but having surface level friendships with most of the school.

More recently, Travis has taken to English as a class as well as drama, but struggles in mathematics. He doesn't have a concrete ambition for the future, and is taking a year to figure it out before he makes any hard decisions.

Advantages: Travis is comfortable in the outdoors, knows his way around knives insofar as he has gutted fish before, and he’s well-liked in school, meaning the social element of SOTF should be his strong suit.
Disadvantages: Travis is slight of frame, meaning he can be easily overpowered in a fight. He’s also nearsighted, practically blind without his glasses.

Original Profile: https://sotfmini.com/wiki/index.php/Pro ... logue_NPCs
Permission: I’m the problem, it’s me.

[MurderWeasel]

Hello, Thee Honeless Beard! Travis is looking fairly solid, just a bit of stuff before he's ready to go.

It's implied Travis is Caucasian, but could we get that explicitly stated in his Appearance section?

"Nerd-core" is a term that might be unfamiliar to some readers—could we perhaps rephrase to something like "Travis’ style can mostly be described as archetypically nerdy"

Right now this sounds a touch like Hansel was the one born to the surrogate: "Born to a surrogate mother that Travis has no relationship with, Hansel and Douglas Dyne raised Travis from the first hour he came into the world." Could we swap it to something like: "Born to a surrogate mother that he has no relationship with, Travis was raised by Hansel and Douglas Dyne from the first hour he came into the world."

I'm pretty sure Hansel and Douglas are married, but could we maybe get it explicitly stated, along with a vague idea of how long they'd been together? Also, Minnesota only legalized same-sex marriage in 2013, (at which point Travis would already be in elementary school), so could we maybe just really briefly establish beforehand if Hansel or Douglas (or both) had changed names even though not officially legally married?

"Travis’ childhood was uneventful - he did well in school but didn’t stand out, his parents teaching him that he’d need it as a tool, but it was never going to be his passion." <- is the "it" here referring to education, or to flying under the radar?

Can we switch this up a bit to drop the quotation marks: "Douglas had several tirades throughout Travis’ childhood about how the school system was ‘changing and shaping history’," Maybe something like: " Douglas had several tirades throughout Travis’ childhood in which he claimed that the school system was changing and shaping history,"

Can we swap " 'bits' " to "comedic bits" (without the quotation marks, but a little more specific on the meaning)?

Can we get TTRPGS and DM introduced without the abbreviation the first time (as Tabletop Roleplaying Games and Dungeon Master respectively), just in case the reader doesn't know what they are?

Can I hear just a touch more about Travis' enjoyment of fishing in specific (or else see that changed in the Hobbies listing to more of an umbrella "outdoors activities")?

A few more little points of expansion:

-Could I hear a little more about Travis' interest in politics? When did he become interested in them? What's his political stance? Or, alternatively, if he's specifically into LGBT issues and doesn't care a ton about other stuff, narrowing the Hobbies listing accordingly would be good.
-How is Travis in school now? What classes is he best at (maybe drama and English)? What's he worst at (it sounds like he might struggle with math)?
-What are Travis' plans for the future? Is he going to college, or taking a gap year (or not going at all)? If he is going to college next year, he probably should've already applied and maybe been accepted.
-What types of people are Travis friends with? How is he thought of by his classmates (it sounds like he's well-liked, but I'd like to just briefly get it explicitly stated).

The Disadvantage will indeed need adjustment, alas, though I have now been subjected to the phrase "pert near". If Travis is especially unfit even compared to the average student, could I hear about it in his bio a bit? Could I also get one more Disadvantage for Travis?

Post when you've got that taken care of, and we'll give Travis another look. Thanks!

[The Honeless Beard]

Fixed 'er up!

[MurderWeasel]

Almost there!

Minnesota actually doesn't have common law marriage. You can just call them committed partners if you want (and they can also be actually married after 2013).

Can I hear how long Hansel and Douglas have been romantically involved?

Can I maybe hear just a bit more about Travis' slight build in his bio? Does it cause him any trouble? Is he really that frail compared to most of his classmates?

Finally, a shellfish allergy is definitely a problem at dinner parties (and situationally with ground coffee!) but doesn't quite rise to the level of disadvantage for SOTF.

Post when you've got that tweaked, and we'll give Travis another look. Thanks!

[The Honeless Beard]

fixed!

[MurderWeasel]

Almost there!

The shellfish allergy still needs to go, as does the dying of death. While an unfortunate ailment, it is sadly not unique to Travis and thus does not qualify as a Disadvantage.

[The Honeless Beard]

done!

[MurderWeasel]

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