Traci X Cael makes me ache I want to draw art of them I wanna write one shots about them I want to receive art of them but they only ever meet in like one or two timelines
First of all are Bolt and Finn, including some PMD portrait edits (haven't decided what Finn's gender situation is yet but it's sure doing something lol)
Overall it ended up being like 50% Traci oops
+ A tiny Cael (I need to show them more love they're so underdeveloped)
Some more Traci and RHM, but this time they're
teeny
And I shall end it off with yet another new OC of mine. If he bears a resemblance to a canon character, don't worry! That's on purpose :)
Free spot to talk about your ocs!! Gimme whatever thoughts you've gotten!
Gahhhhh fuck it. If people know ahead of time then people know ahead of time, I need to talk about them hhhh.
Traci Wells:
First of all I have adjusted her palette again. Reverted her CCC uniform to its original colors, made her shoes and glasses a bit more purplish, and made her hair a bit more reddish (and more vibrant).
I haven’t gotten around to it yet but I may redo how I draw her hair bun. I know it’s possible for one person to have multiple types of curls depending on the location but bun doesn’t match the hair that’s pulled back to make it, if that makes sense.
Basically I need to draw her again so I can share an updated design
Okay some actual character info now-
The original idea for Traci came from one of Ellie’s lines in Capital Gainz. Ellie mentions having “contacts” who are capable of acquiring private info, such as where the Toppat Clan is located. The fact that said contact(s) a) are willing to rat out the Toppat Clan and b) doing have enough of a vendetta to target the Toppat Clan themselves, was what led me to make her a member of the CCC, rather than a more major faction. (Though my own favoritism towards the CCC also played a part.)
Traci is… not the most physically fit. She prefers to assist in combat from a distance, and unlike the militarily trained Charles Calvin, Traci does not adapt well to field work or close quarters combat.
That said, she’s petty as fuck and not afraid to start an argument.
As I have said before, she works for the Subject Surveillance (SS) Wing of the Center for Chaos Containment. Unlike the Area Protection (AP) Wing, SS is devoted to capturing, “tagging”, and releasing individuals known to have high chaos levels (such as Henry, Ellie, RHM, Kabbitz, etc.). This does two things: allows them to distinguish between “area chaos” (e.g. the Toppat vs Govt fight in ItA) and “localized chaos” (e.g. the Ellry vs Kabbitz fight) and approach the situation accordingly (in a way that doesn’t result in wiping out the 1% or so of the population that has superpowers), and lets them study and observe superpowers in their natural state.
Ever since the CCC started working with the Wall, SS has been underfunded because why worry about all the nitty gritty details of where the chaos is coming from when you can just lock up any chaotic specimens (alongside whatever criminals Dmitri thought looked neat) and then take any remaining chaos and blow it up?
Speaking of the Wall, I've mentioned that Traci has a vendetta against Kyle Baxter. Before Kyle was stationed at the Wall, he was another member of SS. He volunteered for the new role for a couple of reasons. 1) With SS funding going down the drain and the CCC getting buddy-buddy with the Wall, he figured it'd be a more financially stable position in the long run; 2) he had experience working with high-chaos individuals so he assumed that it would be similar. (His panic during the big bust-out? That incident falls under the "area chaos" category, which he's not as equipped to deal with.)
Traci is, shall we say... less than pleased with this. And she's not afraid to mention it.
And now, some ✨backstory✨
I have mentioned that Traci has a twin. That twin is actually RHM. They’re biological twins; RHM is transgender.
Yes that does mean that she’s Cockney. I still need to remind myself this sometimes.
Sometime in his teens, RHM got kicked out of the house. I haven’t fully settled on the reason yet; either it was related to him having superpowers or some huge fuckup that’s his fault, or possibly a combination of the two. (Toyed with the idea of it being trans related, but I imagine him discovering that a bit later on in his life.)
He’d live on the streets for a couple of years before being picked up by the Toppat Clan. Almost definitely joined a gang or two in that time.
Traci stayed at home at the time; as much as she cared about her sibling, she also didn’t want to give up the security of having a home (the fact that she wasn’t treated as a “problem child” the way RHM was didn’t help).
Over time she’d grow to regret this decision more and more until she eventually made it her goal to reunite with him somehow. This is what originally motivated her to join the CCC—not only would she have a flying mobile unit, but she’d also have equipment that would help her track down RHM.
She would quickly find her new job to be a perfect for her (even if achieving her original goal would prove to be more difficult than originally thought).
Cael Summers:
So far, there isn’t a whole lot about them that I haven’t shared yet. I was a lot more open when introducing them than I was with Traci. I’ve also had Traci for much longer so she’s had more time to develop than Cael has.
Lots of scrapped ideas incoming!
They weren’t always nonbinary—or maybe they sorta were? When I first started developing them I kept flip flopping between male and female for them. Then I decided that if it was that hard of a decision then maybe they were a secret third thing.
I originally imagined them with a bit of a calmer disposition, but I felt that it made them a bit too similar to Ellie. So I pushed them closer and closer to how they are now: nervous fella who’d rather be at home than dealing with any of this shit.
Their hair became less emo with each iteration. When working on their more recent design I tried to emphasize the fact that they were recently captured by the Wall after getting caught in the middle of a scuffle between them and the Toppats. And that’s how I settled on the more messy hair they have now.
And now some actually still relevant information,
On their off-work days they like to dress more stylishly; they do their hair all nice and add a brooch.
I already mentioned the whole “they swallowed a rock and got powers from it” thing, but I didn’t elaborate on what those were: mind-related powers. Telepathy, mind reading, mind control, mind wiping, astral projection/possession, that sorta thing.
Aside from the telepathy, most of their newfound abilities scare them. They went from “will try to avoid a fight at all costs” to “I accidentally shattered one guy’s mind and turned another guy against his gang” and they don’t quite know how to handle it.
They do meet Ellie at some point—or rather, they might meet her. Cannot share too much more about that, since that’s directly related to the actual fanfic plot. Still working out how exactly they play into her story, but their general dynamic is “Ellie is a bad influence”.
Uhhhhh that’s about it for now? Have fun with these I guess lol
