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Travis Webster
Topic Started: Jan 28 2012, 04:31 AM (821 Views)
Delroy
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Name: Travis Webster
Gender: Male.
Age: 18, turning 19 in late December.
Grade: Grade 12.
School: Aurora High School.
Hobbies and Interests: Video games, drawing, going to the gym, playing the guitar, partying, drugs, girls, and for a couple of years now, some form of fight training.

Appearance: Travis has a long, well-kept mane of black dyed, spiky hair, which reaches down to his lower neck. His eyes are icy blue, with a yellow circle around his pupils. He has a lean, muscled body structure. He’s 5’9, and weighs 172lbs. Travis walks with an overly straight back, giving him a somewhat girly walk, which together with his tight jeans has lead to several rumors about his sexuality in the past. He often has a very mischievous grin, or an arrogant smirk, on his face.

He usually wears a white-red checkered, long sleeved collared shirt, which happens to be slim fit. He has the sleeves rolled up, and a red-black checkered tie which is loosely tied around his neck. He also wears a pair of black skinny jeans, with a set of black high-top converses to top it all off. In his right ear, he has a round, black stud with a white pentagram in the middle, along with a Cartilage piercing. He also has a set of four rings on his fingers. On his right hand, he wears the rings on his middle and index fingers; on his left he wears them on his middle and pinky finger. He wears black nail polish, and he also wears a set of colorful bracelets on both his wrists.

Biography:
Travis was born, and grew up, in the suburbs of Seattle. His family was typical middle class, his father Shaun an accountant, his mother Ingrid a government social worker. His mother grew up in the Seattle area, but his father is a British Immigrant, thus making Travis himself half British.

Travis grew up with his mother, father, his two younger brothers, and a German Sheppard named Gizmo. Having a relatively normal, boring childhood, Travis had a lot of spare time. Luckily for him, there were plenty of children in the neighborhood. Always ready with a smile, a nod, and a laugh, he made friends wherever he went. He began sketching from an early age, taking after his father, who in his youth had dreamt of becoming an artist. His mother also taught him to play the piano, though his true passion soon showed itself to be the Guitar. He quickly fell for the Rock genre, and later into Metal and Punk. However, one of Travis most striking quirks is his constant whistling. When he was 6, his mother taught him to whistle as a part of his musical training, and the song they learned together was the “Whistle Stop” song from the Disney Robin Hood (1973) that Travis has been humming or whistling away to ever since. The song, to him, signifies a time in his life when he was closer to his parents. He also has a tendency to sing to himself when he’s bored.

In his early teenage years, Travis also got into gaming. He preferred FPS games, and put many hours into playing Counter Strike, and in later years Battlefield and Call of Duty, with his friends. Despite his love for all things Computer-violence, he has never fired an actual gun before.

Growing up to be relatively good looking, knowing how to switch over to the accent he picked up from his dad, and getting together with plenty of girls, Travis managed to fall in line with the “in-crowd” despite his somewhat different appearance, and quickly began becoming the life of the parties he went to. At the same time, his parents both got more responsibilities at work, thus spending less time at home than before. This was about the time when Travis and his parents began drifting apart. He had his first shot at 15, and smoked his first joint at 16. Now, at 18, he has tried several party drugs (such as Cocaine and Ecstasy) which he has acquired from friends at parties, as well as smoking Marijuana in his room almost every day, which he acquires from a dealer he knows through his older friends.
His parents usually leave early in the morning and come home late at night from work, allowing him to escape detection so far. His father has been close to catching him a few times, and suspects something, but hasn't been able to prove anything yet.

Travis had never gotten into a fight until he was 16. It was a silly fight at a party, but he got the realization he might need to defend himself in the future, and he didn’t know how. As he began to look around for someone to teach him how to fight, he found one man more suited than the others: His father’s personal trainer, Freddy, who also helped Travis himself at the gym sometimes, who had also once worked as a bouncer and hired muscle for some.... less than savory people. Freddy had apparently been learning several kinds of styles from an early age, and now, he would begin teaching Travis a mixture of them all. Thus, for a fee of 20 dollars an hour, Travis got taught how to fight. Freddie had never taught anyone before, but he quickly learned how to deal with Travis, and the two began meeting regularly several times a week. He picked up various moves from Muay Thai, Taekwondo, Karate, and some moves that weren’t exactly legal in the ring. They would always use boxing bags, and pads, rather than having a sparring partner. In a real fight, his training might be all for naught, as he doesn’t know how to use it on a person, as a moving human might be a big challenge for him.

Growing up in the suburbs has left Travis with a laid back, somewhat spoiled view on life. He is viewed by others around him as a carefree party animal, a man who can’t take anything seriously. However, this is only partially true. Travis has, since an early age, always been an “under stimulated” child. He was basically too smart for his age, thus leading to him becoming bored and then barely even passing the grade. He has kept this up for all these years, but it cannot be stressed enough: Anyone talking to him will notice Travis is a bright young individual, his only problem being a lack of motivation. Despite the fact that him and his parents aren't as close as they used to be, Travis has a deep love for his family. Sometimes, he misses how things used to be when he was younger, before the drugs and the parties, when his parents didn't spend as much time at work as they do now.

The second thing a person meeting Travis for the first time would notice is his charm. His roguish smile, his laugh, and his amoral personality has won many hearts of the women in Aurora High, and made him plenty of friends (along with a few enemies) in the community. Despite being very laid back, one might also find him somewhat arrogant.

Being the sociable teenager that he is, Travis has many friends and acquaintances at the school. He is generally considered a nice guy who, despite his mean jokes at times, never picks or bullies anyone amongst the different clicks in the school. Because of this, he doesn’t really have any direct enemies, except for some Alumni who had harassed him about the way he walked (apparently it made him “gay”) last year before they had left the school. This, however, doesn’t bother him at all. He loves his relaxing, albeit somewhat boring, life, why should he care what some future-McDonalds-working-scum thinks of him?

Advantages:
Working out at the gym several times a week, and his weekly fight-training with Freddy, has left Travis in pretty good shape, with lean agile muscles. The exception, however, is his lungs which is a result from all the smoking. The fight training will also be one of his strengths, since he hasn’t been taught a “correct form” or “how to fight fairly”, but basically how to hurt people. He is popular, or at least accepted, by most people around Aurora High, thus making sure he can most likely make friends with any group he meets along the way. Mentally, he is both clever and, given a sufficient motivator (such as YOUR LIFE), resilient. He could most likely handle the pressure of the competition better than most. But then, you never know in these games, do you?
Disadvantages: For all the training he has done, he is still an amateur. He has never fought another person, even while training. It was always pads or boxing bags. This might be a problem for him, since the lack of experience makes it hard to put his technique into good use. His attachments to people around him will make it hard for him to play the game, and even if he were to play it, he would instantly be known by everyone around the school, thus giving up the element of surprise completely. His arrogance could be the death of him. Having grown up mid-suburbia, he has close to no survival skills, being unable to even read a map (He flat out refused to join the boy scouts as a child). Put this together with his love of whistling and singing to himself, and he could make for an easy target if he doesn’t watch himself. His love for First Person Shooters might give him the impression of knowing how to use a gun, but he might be in for a surprise once he figures out Call of Duty isn’t so realistic after all.
Edited by Delroy, Jan 29 2012, 08:05 PM.
V5 characters:

Travis Webster - Whistling party animal with a roguish smile, quick wit, and without a care in the world.
Spoiler: click to toggle

Pregame: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Island: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Back home: The Webster Household, and their reactions....
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Outfoxd
Contender
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Hi Delroy, I'll be your friendly neighborhood mod for this here critique. Gonna say its DENIED pending some changes and potential reworkings.

In the appearance, the statement " If one were to ask what "group" Travis would fall into, they would probably suggest some form of rock, or punk, or scene, but they'd be wrong. Most people are surprised to see a guy like Travis hanging with the popular crowd, but he doesn't really care about "groups" anyway." somewhat throws off the voice of the appearance, as it seems to be more a piece of information for the biography itself rather than a description of how the character looks.

I'm interested in why he whistles that one particular song specifically. Might be an interesting insight into his character.

Of note when I read is how youthful the character is when he first smoked weed and started drinking. I have a little more issue with his usage of party drugs and the like. Has he not faced any adverse consequences for any of this? How does he obtain these drugs? For someone younger than 18, this should be a strong point of contention for his parents. It's not likely they wouldn't find out, as from the bio's account they're definitely around. You might want to consider telling us more about how his parents factor into his daily life.

Now you say the character does amateur fight training, but that term is usually reserved for people who fight competitively at an amateur level. Keep that in mind.

Some of the martial arts stuff doesn't quite ring true. All three of the arts you list the character as learning have medium to hard contact sparring as a regular part of their training regimen. How does the bouncer teach Travis if he doesn't have other students for him to spar with? It's extremely rare to find an art with effective techniques that doesn't train live at least some of the time. You actually draw attention to this fact in the disadvantages, but I would like to mention sparring is supposed and competition are supposed to be a surrogate for actually fighting in these arts.

Also, where does the bouncer derive his training from? These three arts are diverse ones all dealing with the striking aspect of combat. Did he just train in all these arts at some point and he's teaching Travis a smattering of various techniques piecemeal? Did he do MMA and these were the base striking arts? If this is the case, he'd most likely be able to teach Travis some grappling as well. Keying in on and elaborating on these details will help flesh out the character and make it easier to parse the skills he can bring to bear once in the game.

There are a few repetitions ou'll want to double check on as you write as well. For example, you write "Always ready with a smile, a nod, and a laugh, he would always make friends wherever he went."

Here you can kill the second always for sake of brevity. Also, you may want to write the second half as "he made friends wherever he went" to keep the tense consistent with the first half.

Thanks for submitting, PM me if you have any questions, and I look forward to looking at this again!
V5 Characters:

Leona Van Kamp
Current Thread: Arcadia


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Delroy
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Edited :)

I'd just like to point out that it isn't actually an official course he's taking. It basically amounts to the same "professionalism" as two friends training with one another in their backyard. I added that to the profile too :P
Edited by Delroy, Jan 29 2012, 08:05 PM.
V5 characters:

Travis Webster - Whistling party animal with a roguish smile, quick wit, and without a care in the world.
Spoiler: click to toggle

Pregame: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Island: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Back home: The Webster Household, and their reactions....
Offline Profile Goto Top
 
Outfoxd
Contender
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APPROVED
V5 Characters:

Leona Van Kamp
Current Thread: Arcadia


Offline Profile Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
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