#gtw characters

[goingtoweather]

[image desc: B&W illustration of a ghost looming over a white middle aged bearded man, its bloodied hands holding his jaw and running through his hair. The man looks distressed but resigned. The ghost appears as a mangled white man with long black hair, a noose around its neck, and the flesh of half its jaw gone. /end id]

I tend to have centerpiece scenes I write around when first drafting stories, and for Going to Weather this captain bein stuck with the Personification-Of-Mutiny-Ghost is one of them.

[goingtoweather]

Scribbling a ghost design. It's the personification of a mutiny.

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[id: digital sketch of a young white man in a peacoat and cravat walking alongside a young Black man in a white shirt and cravat. They’re talking casually & cheerfully, with abstract ship masts in the background. /end ID]

Rough test to figure out how I want to style this comic in a way that won’t take 9 million years to finish. As much as I liked the old engraving ‘i will stubbornly make solid black areas with hatching’ style of the Old Comic it...was Not Sustainable.

Idk if I like it WE’LL SEE.

[goingtoweather]

[image desc: Sketch of a white man and woman holding hands. The man is middle aged with dirty blonde hair and a beard, wearing 1840s working gear and looking at the woman pensively. The woman is younger in a pale green dress, with her dark hair pulled in a bun with two looping braids. She's smiling at the man and holds a candle in her free hand. The man's free hand is bloodied and hanging at his side. /end id]

More GTW character designs. Captain & his wife. Barzillai and Adelaide Waite. She's gonna be on the boat too.

[goingtoweather]

Character Bio - Lawrence Manner

Name: Lawrence Manner Age: 26. Born February 22nd 1817 Gender: Man Place of Birth: Newport, New Hampshire, United States Current Occupation: Greenhand aboard the Valor

Bio: Lawrence was born the second of five children and grew up in Newport. He didn't have a particularly warm family life--materially provided for, but not emotionally close. His family was well off from their involvement with a woolen mill, but as a young man Lawrence left to pursue an education. However, by the time he was 26 he relinquished the future he was building for himself and all personal ties ashore, for reasons he reticently states are his own. Reasons that--with a plan half formed and self-destructive--led him to New Bedford to sign aboard a whaler as an anonymous and inexperienced greenhand.

Personality: He's cordial, polite, and passes no judgement, while also being very frank in how he communicates with people. He's quite guarded about his own background however. He'll politely and truthfully answer what is asked of him, but rarely volunteers much more of himself. As a result he tends to hold people at an emotional distance, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. Very introspective. Has grown familiar with his own loneliness. Views the world with a certain sort of poetry. Amateur artist. Privately melodramatic at times. Thinks that's all very embarrassing.

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Character Bio - Ezra Carter

Name: Ezra Carter Age: 25. Born December 30th 1818 Gender: Man Place of Birth: New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States Current Occupation: 2nd Mate aboard the Valor

Bio: Ezra is the oldest of two children, with his little sister being 13 years his junior. His parents were self-emancipated from Virginia and made a life together in New Bedford in 1816. Ezra is very close with his family. His father worked as a carpenter largely making furniture, and Ezra would spend his time gazing at the harbor while sweeping up wood shavings in the shop, listening to his father share stories about Black captains and merchants. His father died when Ezra was 13, and Ezra immediately signed on to a whaler, leaving his mother a note saying so rather than asking for her counsel or blessing. To her relief he returned two years later, and to her grief he signed on again. He thought it was the best way to help support his family that now included a little sister born while he was gone, while also following his dream of becoming a captain. Through his skill and continued experience he rose through the ranks, going from an ordinary to a harpooner, to 2nd mate on what will be his 5th voyage. His sister thinks he's cool as hell, but his mother wants him to find something safer ashore that won't take him away for years at a time. But Ezra still aims for a captaincy, and with it the sort of advancement and agency he doesn't think he can find on land.

Personality: Ezra exists on a very even keel, and is calm and adaptable in the face of most situations. He has a dry sense of humor. Though laid-back on the surface, he has a driving ambition that nothing can really set him off track of, even if it means long separations from people he loves or drifting away from friends who have different goals. He often finds himself taking on mentorship roles with more inexperienced crew members. While Ezra heckles greenhands a bit, he's also friendly and patient with them. Willing to offer guidance. He can be short with people when he feels like someone isn't pulling their full weight on the ship or is making the work harder though.

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Character Bio - Barzillai Waite

Name: Barzillai Waite Age: 46. Born April 8th, 1797. Gender: Man Place of Birth: Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States Current Occupation: Captain of the Valor

Bio: Barzillai comes from a long line of whaling captains, and from childhood was basically tracked into the profession. His first whaling trip was at age 11 serving as a cabin boy on a ship his father was captain of. From then on he spent more time on ships than on shore, becoming a skilled seaman who quickly rose through the ranks. He captained his first ship in 1819 at age 22. By 1827, as the industry grew, Barzillai moved to New Bedford in anticipation of that city's rising power. There, he met Adelaide Aylward and the two married within the year. Half a decade later, Barzillai was part of a mysterious incident at sea in which the ship and all other hands were lost. In the aftermath, the ship owners he was working for, Roxbury & Hanshaw, decided to take another gamble on him anyway due to his history of leading other profitable voyages. His most recent trip was incredibly successful, and as a result, he's signed on with them again for a another voyage on the Valor.

Personality: Barzillai's default mode is a quiet dour one. Spends a lot of time in his head. He captains with a firm if not overbearing hand. He doesn't suffer fools, incompetence, insubordination, or complaints, and is quick to mete out discipline with little to no warning. His violence is a cold and controlled one. However, he's very open about acknowledging when someone has done good work and rewards that work fairly. Exhausted by the persona he has to maintain, he longs to put his trust in people. If someone has earned his favor in significant ways he'll let his entire guard down around them. He's particularly tender with Adelaide. Seeing her as a respite from everything, he's quick to relinquish his control and his rages and his ambitions in her company, but he also doesn't tell her about how he handles himself at sea for fear of her opinion of him changing.

[goingtoweather]

Character Bio - Adelaide Waite

Name: Adelaide Waite (maiden name Aylward) Age: 35. Born October 25th, 1808. Gender: Woman Place of Birth: New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States Current Occupation: Whaling wife, married to Barzillai Waite.

Bio: Adelaide was born to a working class family as the middle child of three sisters. Her parents were dressmakers/tailors, but her father was also a lettered man with unfulfilled dreams of being a poet. He was interested in providing an education to his daughters, albeit one that was based entirely within his own passions. The economic reality however led to Adelaide ultimately picking up the needle trades too within their shop. She met Barzillai in 1828 when he came to have a jacket fitted and, feeling bold, she sewed a flirtatious message to him on a patch in the lining of the coat. Having done it just for fun and expecting nothing to come of it, she was surprised when he came back the next day. They got married within the year. While his work has brought her into a financially comfortable lifestyle, it also means she sees little of him. She's disappointed with the arrangement. Independent and self-sufficient, Adelaide manages her solitary life well in the city, but when Barzillai was nearly lost at sea she realized she couldn't deal with the uncertainty of his profession. She convinced him to let her join him on the next voyage aboard the Valor, and he acquiesced.

Personality: Adelaide is simultaneously pragmatic but also prone to philosophical and romantic musing. She's practical and grounded in her day-to-day dealings and problem solving, but is also always analyzing people's behavior and the systems they're operating in, in a more abstract way. She's a warm conversationalist, incredibly disarming, and very open to accepting and speaking to multiple perspectives. She's a nurturing person and happy to step into that role, but dislikes being solely defined by it. She pushes back against being underestimated or restricted, but often in a way that leverages social charm rather than overt rebellion.