Name: Rafael Longtooth
Nicknames: Rafe, Deathbite
Gender: Male
Age: 15
Faction: Monster
Race: Plague rat
Natural Ability: Shapeshifting. Namely, he can shift down into a big, but not HUGE, rat -- about the size of a small dog, 5-7lbs. Aside from its size, the rat looks like a basic regular ol' rat. It has grey-brown fur and beady black eyes.
Personality: In order to understand Rafael, you gotta understand plague rats. Lots of monsters might not have families, but for Rafe, family is everything.
Rafael grew up in a small, ramshackle old house with the rest of his clan, The Longtooth Clan -- a group of around 20 in all. He shared a bed with his parents and all of his siblings -- 8 altogether -- and has never worn anything other than second-hand rags. It's not that the clan was "poor"...just that they cared about other things much more than keeping up appearances.
He never quite fit in with his clan, despite being the son of the alpha. He wasn't exactly an heir -- he had four older brothers to carry on the family name -- but he was still a bit of a disappointment to his dad. He was, for a rat, very quiet and introspective. He likes to read and as soon as he found out about the Academy, he wanted nothing more than to go there and better himself. Unfortunately, it's taking a LOT of effort to convince his family -- and especially his alpha father -- to let him leave.
Because of his upbringing, some things are completely new and alien to Rafe. He doesn't understand fashion, wealth or status at all. Ostentation confuses him. He also doesn't really "get" technology. He's never had a skellyphone or a PreCee or a gaming system, and he doesn't really know what to do with them. He's never been to a scarecade or a maul or even a restaurant. He's hardly ever met anyone who wasn't part of his own family! He's insatiably curious about the outside world, though, and he's learned a lot about others by reading books and people-watching from a distance.
He also has some issues with personal space and privacy. By plague rat standards, he's downright aloof, what with his tendency to bury his nose in a book or sneak away for some quiet time to think. By normal people standards, he can be pretty intense or even clingy. He's very touchy-feely and tends to communicate heavily through touch, whether it be hugs and kisses or shoves and pokes. He stands too close to people and asks inappropriate questions and has an incredibly difficult time understanding "me" time. If you tell him you need some space, he'll probably assume that you don't like him (at best) or are actively plotting his demise (at worst).
Because rats generally work out their hierarchy (and even just bond) through fighting and scuffles, Rafael has a tendency to pick fights a bit unwisely. He's not as rough-and-tumble as most of his kind, but he's comparatively more likely to start a fight, and quite often a fight that he has no chance of winning. It's hard for him to remember that he doesn't always have his clan-buddies backing him up!
Why are they enrolled in Amityville Academy? Rafe really, really wants to enjoy school. He wants to learn new things, to harness his FEAR and make some friends. He's not sure if he'll ever return to his clan or if he'll strike out to find his own path, and he's in no hurry to decide.
He's also heard that everybody at the school gets their own dorm room and their own bed. He's never, ever, ever had a bed all to himself before, and he figures that alone should be enough reason to go!
FEAR Ability: Infected Bite (tainted fang)
Rafael's bite has a chance of causing illness-type effects -- wooziness, fever, nausea, shivering, and general weakness. The illness effect stacks.
Physical Description:
Eye Colour: Red
Hair Colour/Style: Mousy brown, tousled and messy, and a little long -- about chin length. Like this.
Skin Colour: Ashy grey-brown.
Clothing Style/Colours: Second-hand, shabby, mismatched, but obsessively clean. He tends to wear primarily earthy colors like grey, black, green and brown, and usually in layers. He usually wears a pair of frayed cargo shorts and a long-sleeve grey shirt under a faded and patched green over-shirt. He wears small round glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He's always barefoot.
Extra: Large, gray rodent ears; long, bald rodent tail; yellow oversized buck teeth; rodenty clawed feet and hands. He's almost always carrying around a battered book of some kind or another so he can bury his nose in it any time he gets a chance.
References:
(behold Fen's suck-tacular art!)
