Name

Brendan Colby Cooper

Nicknames

Most people who know him call him Brendan, but to friends he’s sometimes called Colby, and he’s equally fine with either.

Age

23

Gender

Male

Sexuality

Homosexual

To the public, Brendan is known as hetero. He doesn’t share any information about his sexuality easily, not wanting to be judged for this. And frankly, he doesn’t think it’s anyone’s business anyway.

Role

The Local

Voice

Colby has a somewhat deep and almost droning voice that differs from that of most people in town. He doesn’t often speak loud, and his voice has a bit of a waver, especially when he’s nervous.

Appearance

Brendan has tanned skin with a brown undertone, slightly warm-toned. It’s a bit oily and not too well taken care of, with a number of small pockmarks and little scars. He has a broad forehead and high cheekbones with rounded cheeks, giving his face a distinctive shape. His face is fairly narrow. His most prominent features are his large nose and lazy eye. His nose is slightly bulbous and almost droopy, with a strong bridge. His mouth is downturned, giving him a resting scowl. He has narrow eyes, which are a warm color somewhere between hazel and grey. His right is lazy. He has thin lashes and a hooded gaze. His hair is slightly wavy, with a soft black color. It goes down to his upper back, with a light curl at the end and a high wave towards the front. He often wears it with two thick braids in the front, and his hair loose in the back. It’s not particularly well-maintained, but has a lightness and natural texture that makes it pretty easy to take care of - he just needs to run a comb through it once or twice. He also has a faint black goatee, and the wisps of a mustache.

Colby is a little taller than the average man his age, and a bit on the thinner side. He has long hands with slender fingers, and thin feet. He has some sinewy muscle to him, but not the sort of strength that someone who consistently works out would have. He has a few small scars, minor injuries, and little cuts and bruises he’s gotten from his little adventures. Besides this, he also has a number of tattoos across his shoulders, upper back, and neck area. These are abstract patterns, some bearing resemblance to Pomo Native American symbols. The designs for these were provided by Brendan, but his Uncle Benny, the tattoo artist who did them for him, had never seen any of the symbols before. So they’re not entirely accurate. Bendan has fairly soft skin and his palms don’t show any sign of real hard work, though they have a few calluses and rough spots.

Though Colby has the number of shirts that a normal human should own, but without fail, nearly every single day he can be seen wearing the same one. It’s a simple T-shirt, so used that it’s slightly frayed at the edges, and is a dark purple color that’s nearly brown. It has a light mandala-like print on it, so faded it’s hard to make out by now. Over this he often wears a distressed, loose denim jacket. During the summer, he often wears jean-like shorts that end about halfway up his calf. He has a thick brown leather belt with a simple silver-colored buckle. He has strapped sandals for a more casual look, or a pair of fairly tall leather boots for adventures, a bit worn but not in bad shape. He has a large silver ring with a braid-like design in the metal around a smooth piece of teal and brown turquoise. He wears this on the middle finger of his left hand. He also has a pair of sleek wraparound sunglasses with dark lenses which he's usually wearing.

Personality

Brendan has always been the kind of person who kept to himself, and that’s not exactly unusual in this town. It’s full of strange and reclusive people, perhaps as a result of the mysterious and odd feeling of the whole town, and the strange occurrences that often happen there. Bendran mostly stays in his house, coming out only for things like grocery shopping or going to work. People say he has no ambition - he’s certainly not like his uncle, who was a vital part of this town and well-liked by citizens. Only something as dramatic as what’s happened now could have pulled Brendan from his solitude. Now that he’s out in the world, he’s not so sure he’s ready to interact with people very much. Everything he does in interactions feels wrong to him, and he analyzes every action and word of other people to determine their true meanings. He can’t help but feel that they’re laughing at him and judging him behind his back, gossiping when he’s not around. His acute paranoia makes it stressful for him to talk to people he doesn’t know well. He doesn’t want anyone to laugh at him, and is somber and hates cracking jokes. It’s not that he can’t tell jokes.In fact, he’s far more easy-going and funny around people he’s comfortable with. And he has a sense of humor when it comes to other people’s jokes. But he doesn’t want people’s first impression of him to be that he’s silly or comedic. He wants to be taken seriously and afforded respect.

His feelings are easily hurt, even by innocent passing comments that mean nothing to the person who said them. When his feelings are hurt, he often gets standoffish and withdrawn. He’s easily angered, but keeps it bottled up inside, convinced he’s overreacting. He doesn’t react when people are mean to him or those he loves. It takes a buildup of incidents with a particular person for him to blow his top. When he does get angry, he gets right up in their face, not afraid to say exactly what he thinks, no matter how cruel it is to say out loud. Depending on the situation, he might apologize later, never bring it up again, or continue to hold a grudge. Although it doesn’ seem like it, he does like people. Or rather, the idea of people. He has empathy for others in the abstract, but when it comes to applying it in real-life, he’s mostly just really awkward. A pat on the arm or vague “sorry” is the most he can do. He likes being around people, but prefers it when they ignore him. Being able to sit around quietly doing his own things with family or friends is important to him. He’s certainly not romantic, and at twenty-three he still sticks out his tongue when people kiss in movies, and looks away when they baby-talk at each other in public. When flirted with, he’s instantly perplexed and mildly grossed out, and jumps the gun to shut them down, sometimes a little too harshly.

Colby has always been highly motivated, even if he lacks the social skills to make something out of his many talents. He’s especially interested in technology, but he’d have to leave this town if he wanted to really pursue it. And the last he wants is to have to make a home for himself somewhere else. He loves films, video games, and watching sports on the TV. He has a mind for mechanical inventions, and is interested in taking things apart. He has a few strange machines put together in his house - the bits and pieces collected from years of scavenging and “not exactly stealing” things people would never miss. He’s also very fond of playing bass guitar, and it’s something he imagines he could make a career out of - if he could stand to play in front of people. He’s a hard worker who’s highly motivated, and there’s nothing he hates more than losing. He’s very competitive, and tends to win most contests and competitions he’s in. He’s stubborn and won’t give in until he gets what he wants. This steadfast streak often surprises people who don’t know him well. He’s known in his town as a general slacker, and keeps his accomplishments to himself. On the rare occasion that someone shows genuine interest, though, he gets so wrapped up in showing them what he’s done that he carries on far too long. He uses a lot of technical words, and often loses the person he’s trying to explain it to.

Though he’s fairly smart, and a quick learner, Brendan is far from practical. He doesn’t make plans or think too far ahead when it comes to his life, though he certainly has the ability to if he wanted. He’s intelligent, but not wise. He was good in school, and has a detail-oriented mind with an aptitude for numbers and mechanics. One thing he’s never been good with, though, is his own finances. It’s less that he can’t do them, and more that he tends to slack on keeping track and meeting deadlines. This, unfortunately, means he’s gotten himself into a bit of debt. He lives by his impulses, following his instincts and emotions. He’s extremely reactive, and has a hard time hiding how he’s feeling. This embarrassed him, and he hates it when people feel bad for him. He gets a thrill from taking risks, and since he’s alone most of the time, these extreme risks can lead him to dangerous situations with nobody else to help him get out of them. He constantly has various injuries from this. He’s not afraid of physical injury, and refuses to fight with anyone smaller or weaker than him. The biggest draw for him has always been mystery. This town is full of the strange and enigmatic. When Colby was younger, he and his friends loved to go exploring and try to uncover the “mysteries of Fern Valley,” which they thought was a good joke. Like most young people, they grew out of it when they realized the darkness of this town was more real than they could know. But Brendan was the opposite. As he realized the stories about this town were more than silly folk tales, he felt himself more drawn to them. The greatest risk of all, the thrill and adrenaline of fear, these were the parts of his life that made him feel like a real adventurer. He loves ancient history, riddles, clues, old stories of mysterious deaths. Though he doesn’t have the stomach for gore or gross-looking monsters, he likes psychological horror movies. He’s fond of the supernatural and creepy. Really, a lot of people in town are. It’s thrilling and special to live in a place like this - as long as it doesn’t happen to you. Maybe losing his uncle has changed how Brendan sees things.

Having been in his small house in this small town his whole life, Brendan is what you might call naive about the rest of the world. Though he’s paranoid about social situations, he’s also very gullible and trusting of things others tell him. He doesn’t expect betrayal, or to be abandoned by people he loves. He’s easily convinced of almost anything, whether it’s something as philosophical as the “right” religion or as technical as whether worms can be blue. He’s almost as innocent as a kid when it comes to stuff like this, and would rather conform to other people’s beliefs and ideas than take the effort to defend his own. Anyone could confuse him to the point where he’d believe any random fact they made up - act confident enough and it’ll only take ten minutes to convince him that lions are rodents. He’s very easy to mess with, and doesn’t seem to learn from people’s behaviors, falling for the same trick a few times in a row before he finally catches on. If he finds out he’s being messed with multiple times, though, he’s not going to be happy about it, and there’s a good chance he’ll lose his temper. He has a number of random misinformation facts memorized from an old friend who absolutely loved to convince Colby of the most outlandish things he could think of.

Current Job

Video Store Cashier

There’s a very old video store called Reel Love in town, owned by Old Man Cruthers. It sells mostly VHS tapes. Brendan is one of the only two employees, and hardly anyone comes to the store. Besides the fact that most people have moved into the 21st century, the store’s collection is meager and the whole place has a sinister feeling.

Likes

Video Games

Sports TV

Rube Goldberg Machines

Horror Movies

Scavenging

Riddles

Mysteries

Acorns

Rhyming

Brown-Purple

Competition

Risks

Creepy Stories

Whiskey

Dislikes

Social Interactions

Telling Jokes

PDA

Losing

Public Performance

Gore

Gross Monsters

Being Overly-Emotional

Gossip

Being Tricked

Bullies

His Lazy Eye

Strengths

Competition

Determination

Technology

Mechanics

Guitar

Physical Strength

Pain Tolerance

Boldness

Investigation

Barehanded Fighting

Quick Learner

Weaknesses

Social Interaction

Easily Hurt Feelings

Stubbornness

Naivety

Impulsiveness

Easily Influenced

Weak Stomach

Paranoia

Booksmarts

Actual Combat

Aim

Fears

Bugs | All kinds of bugs creep Brendan out, but mostly ones with a few too many legs - ones like centipedes, spiders, and silverfish. He can’t stand to be in the same room with them.

Hospitals | The sterile white illness of hospitals has always given Brendan a strange feeling, Being in a hospital, surrounded by the sick and dying, puts him on edge.

Social Interaction | It’s been a while since Brendan’s really had to talk to anyone, except some passing small talk. He’s always had some level of social anxiety, and it seems to have gotten worse since he moved out of his uncle’s house.

Embarrassment | Brendan’s terrified of being humiliated in front of people, and of them laughing at him. He wants, needs, to be taken seriously.

Emotional Risks | Though Colby likes to take physical risks, he’s far more careful when it comes to emotional risks. He doesn’t like to do anything that could wind up being embarrassing or nerve-inducing.

Family

Benjamin Cooper

Uncle

Brendan never knew his father, and he can't remember his mother. The rest of the family wanted nothing to do with him. So he was raised solely by his Uncle Benny. Uncle Benny owned the town tattoo parlor, an artistic type who spent his days chatting with various townsfolk. He was a laidback hippie type who was notoriously good with kids. He had a tendency to look after any kids in need in the neighborhood. He was already getting on in years when he took in Colby.

Affiliations

Ezra

Brendan doesn't know Ezra too well yet, but he's somewhat interested in the way Ezra's documenting the events on film. He seems to be a calm and quiet person, which is exactly the kind of person Colby can get along with.

Mai

Mai is Brendan's cousin, though he hasn't actualy met her before now. He's heard a lot of good things about her from his Uncle Benny - about how she's a star student, how talented she is, what a success. He's inclined to feel a little jealous of this, but that doesn't mean he can't try and get along with her.

Jaxon

Jaxon was always around when Colby was growing up, and in school they were good friends despite Jaxon being popular and Brendan being, well, not. Uncle Benny was like a surrogate father to Jaxon. When Jaxon's mother started pushing him away from his friends, he and Brendan drifted apart. Jaxon became one of the cool crowd, and Colby's still a little sore about the whole thing.

Carswell "Jack"

Brendan has met Jack a few times. He seems like a calm and comforting person, and he's one of the few townsfolk Colby is inclined to like. He's seen Jack at the auto shop where he works, mostly. They don't know a lot about each other.

Noellë

Five years ago, Brendan and Noellë started going out together. Three years ago, they split up. It was one of Brendan's first relationships, and he was even more paranoid then than he is now. So when Noellë started acting a bit too secretive, Colby figured the relationship was dying. When Noellë asked him to meet them for something important, he figured he was getting dumped. So he decided to beat him to the punch. Noellë never even knew what he'd done wrong. A little while later, a mutual friend told Brendan that Noellë had been working on a surprise for their anniversary. Colby refuses to believe it, because that would make all this his fault. He's still sore at Noellë.

Love Interests

Ex: Noellë

Connection to Missing Person

Uncle Benny

Colby was raised by his Uncle Benny, and moved out when he was nineteen years old. Brendan and Benny were close, and it was always Brendan’s particular interest to go walking in the supposedly-haunted woods. His uncle didn’t want him out there alone, and that’s why they often went together. It was during one such outing, when Brendan had strayed a little ahead of his aging Uncle Benny, that Benny went missing. Anxious about his uncle and afraid to talk to the police, Brendan investigated by himself until he realized how dangerous this was about to become. It took him days to be able to build up the courage to go to the authorities.

Backstory

What People Know:

Brendan came to this town when he was two years old, after his mother died. His dad took off after he was born, but his father’s brother took him in. Colby was born in the Elem Indian Colony, and his mother was a Pomo Native American, but he was raised by his non-Native uncle just like any other kid in the small town, and never knew much about his mother’s life and culture. He had a small group of friends growing up, and like many kids, this group enjoyed exploring the mysteries and horrors of their small town. Colby was a good student, though quiet and withdrawn in school. He was very close with his uncle, and a bit of a homebody. His uncle, Benny, was a member of the Town Council, a frequent volunteer, and a well-known man about town. He ran a tattoo parlor, a self-described tattoo artist who drew odd and artistic types. Colby quickly disappointed people’s expectations as Benny’s nephew, and as time went on people sort of lost interest in what he was going to do with himself. They might politely inquire when at Benny’s parlor, but Brendan had proven he was nothing like his uncle. Colby drifted away from his friends, as happens when people get older. When he turned nineteen, he moved out of his uncle’s house and got his own. He had started working at the old video store the previous year, and that’s pretty much where he settled. People didn’t see him a lot. Now, very recently, his Uncle Benny went missing in the forest.