Hello everyone! I have recently collaborated with
@Louanne Learning to create a character. Before I start going crazy, I wanted to see what everyone else thinks, what changes I should make, and how he relates to the story and other characters. The profile is below.
Name: Zǐhuǒ
Male or female: Male
Age: 72 years
Chinese, British, American or French?: Human-echo-machine hybrid
Physical appearance:
He has elongated limbs and the like, because he has adapted to the belief that unnatural and bizarre things strike fear of the unknown into the hearts of humans, and therefore he uses that to his advantage. His frame is tall and unnervingly thin, joints bending just a little too far, fingers a little too long, movements just slightly delayed. He has several clockwork, ethereal elements to him, as if trying to be modern and struggling to achieve that goal. Beneath thin, almost translucent skin, faint ticking can be heard, and the slight outline of steampunk gears turning where organs should be can sometimes be seen.
He looks a lot like a human at first glance, but just something about him is just wrong – long limbs, a strange face that seems almost correct yet slightly misaligned. Clockwork mechanisms whir softly in his chest, and brass and iron components replacing flesh and bone in places, while an ethereal, otherworldly aura surrounds him. He exists in that uncanny space between man and machine, never fully belonging to either.
Backstory:
When a spirit wishes to intersect with an echo-machine, things are meant to go right.
Not in the case of Zǐhuǒ.
Decades ago, the man that Zǐhuǒ once was became eager to heighten his power, to better his life. Fusing with an echo-machine was the obvious answer. The transformation idea was simple.
The actual transformation was not.
Something predatory, ancient, and unknown had fractured within the machine long before it was too late. Human emotions and moral code collided with sheer predatory, survivalist instinct. Whatever was in that echo-machine had perhaps been waiting for him.
And now, they were one.
Personality:
Quiet, calculating, and aloof to humans, he tries to act normal, to no avail. When machine, predator and man collide, one thing is certain: instability is inevitable.
Other information:
Not many know what he is, who he is, or why he is here, but rumors are spread faster than wildfires, saying he may be a force of nature, a monster, or perhaps a genetically engineered human.
Not many know that he is the sum of all three.
Winner : February Poetry
Winner: 4th Contest Feb
Winner: 4th Contest August
Winner: June Flash Fiction
