Reflection Week: ZAC’s Character
Since we did Twitch, let's go explore the least favorable of the 2 according to you guys, ZAC, the secret weapon. Again, just like the Twitch one, this is simply just my opinion on how I feel this character is going and it would be nice to get some feedback here on whether or not I'm wrong. As for the most part, I think I have the general characteristics down for ZAC, but I feel like I should've expanded the character a bit more during my time here.
A Bouncing Hero Who's..... What?:
If we look back at the Twitch reflection post, I postulated that Twitch won the poll because he was the most easy to identify as a character and honestly the most cartoony. While I don't what ZAC as cartoony as Twitch, I still feel like there could've been more to his character. For the most part, I did get a lot of his more general characteristics and they do show. He's a superhero! He's friendly and kind enough to befriend a sociopathic plague rat. He's naive due to his inexperience with the outside world. He can be geeky and fun. But my problem lies with the fact that I feel that those traits are a bit too general. Like he's a pretty boring character. I mean, I think there is some charm to my ZAC. He is heroic and naive, but compared to Twitch, I feel like he's not as interesting as Twitch nor do the threads I had with him connect to those traits and better develop him.
Let's look at Twitch as an example. Twitch is a rat that grew paranoid of human not only because of his physical state, but also through his experiences with humans. The first time they saw him, they would most likely try to kill him, building to his fear. He's also very arrogant and greedy due to his beliefs that he's better than everyone, most likely stemming from his encounters with humans as well. Despite this, he does show a lot of care to the roaches and fleas he collected and his best friend ZAC. He also has dreams of not being alone in the sewers, continuously trying to recreate his sentience through his experiments. And as for the cherry on the top, he can be a pretentious critic, thinking that what he deems good in terms of taste and visual art is REALLY REALLY good.
Now let's look at ZAC. He's a super hero that came out of isolation who dreams of one day changing Zaun for the better. He extremely kind and willing to give criminals a second chance. He is very calm in the face of danger. He is geeky and fun through his love of comic books and does like to have fun watching TV or imitating other people. He can be really naive, stemming from his isolation from the world, but he'll try to learn, unless they go against his strict ideals continually reinforced by his parents.
If I were to say which one is the most identifiable and developed as a character , I bet money that Twitch would be the one that's the most developed. The size is bigger and there's way more detail in Twitch's description. Furthermore, Twitch's traits are more conveyed in the threads more than ZAC is. Sometimes the threads can contradict with ZAC's basic personality traits. (I broke the calm rule way too much) Unless the situation calls for it, inconsistency in character traits are always bad no matter what.
It's not like I'm saying my ZAC is bad, just underdeveloped. He does have a lot of charm with his heroism and can be a lot of fun to write, but he is still underdeveloped nonetheless.
A Long Term Character in a Supporting Role:
ZAC is a dramatic character by heart. He's a naive hero facing the corruption of Zaun, there has to be some drama in there. As how I dealt with him as a long term character, I felt like I did fine. He can be serious and dramatic at points, but he does show some fun sides. He can imitate other people. He can dance at parties. He's a very likable character with really good ideals. I feel like I did balance out the dark side of ZAC as well as the light side of ZAC. He can be dramatic but he could also have some fun. Sometimes I do feel like he can be too leaning towards the serious side and I need to show his fun side a lot more, but for the most part, I think I balanced it out pretty well.
The biggest problem here however, is that he never experienced any character development this year. All character development has been shoved to Twitch. (I blame the act of putting all M!As on Twitch, but that's for tomorrow) Twitch developed more this year than the original long term character. That's kinda sad if you think about it. Twitch was originally a comedic short-term character while ZAC has the potential to be a really good long-term character. ZAC is a hero who finally came out of isolation. He's naive about the world and thinks that everything's divided by black and white. He believes that he can change criminals, but they'll have to change to his way. The good guy way. This character can go numerous directions on how you deal with him, but I never moved him in any direction yet. He's essentially Twitch's supporting character in most of the drabbles I put, and I don't want it to be like that. I want Twitch to influence ZAC as much as ZAC influences Twitch but that just didn't happen this year.
So in conclusion, I think I got his character base down, but I should really build upon it to make him more interesting. He's definitely likable, but not interesting enough and I have to put him as a main character in drabbles next year because I really don't want him to be only Twitch's supporting character. (This is also why I'm trying to avoid the Twitch clone M!A) I need to focus on ZAC as much as I focus on Twitch. I don't think I did bad, it's just that I feel like I should do more for this character.
