Jaes

An eccentric and scatterbrained genius with poor social skills and a tendency to experiment on himself. A main character of Catcross.

Basic Info

Name: Jaes

Nicknames & Titles: Felid (vigilante alter ego)

Age & Birthdate: Adult (mid 20s)

Identity: Demisexual tir (vanir)

Vi Color: Pink (dedication)

Allegiances & Ranks: Self

Personality & History

Personality

Jaes is awkward and playful. He enjoys making jokes and finds the smaller things amusing, sometimes even fascinating. However, he can struggle with identifying when someone does not enjoy his jokes, which can lead to conflicts. Because he has to hide his cat traits in civilian form, he often appears reserved until spoken to.

He is very intelligent, though it may not seem like that due to his presentation. He is definitely more of a jack of all trades than a master of anything, as he flits from project to project and rarely documents them. Unlike most intelligent/nerdy/techy characters, he tends to underexplain rather than over-explain (sometimes to the point that his explanation is a single word).

He is very competitive, but only with himself. Often, when complimented, he will thank the giver of the compliment and then proceed to very factually and determinedly disembowel his performance. This is not because he dislikes compliments or is upset about what he observes about his performance, but because he takes delight in breaking down and criticizing his own work. When it comes to competing against others, this drive and enjoyment disappears, so he often appears lazy or unaggressive unless others are depending on him (such as in a team sport).

Hobbies and Interests

• Digital art
• Writing (fantasy, science fantasy, cartoon fanfic)
• Studying biology, physiology, and medicine
• Coding (particularly web-related coding, as that's where he got his start)
• Ice hockey (mainly playing it)
• Studying forsen
• Basically anything he's interested in but will mostly forget about in a month (if you need a random skill, he's probably your guy)

Mannerisms

• He often makes noises, adds extra endings onto words, forces rhymes, or makes up words (especially by combining other words) when he is feeling strong emotions. Despite this, he is terrible at perceiving his own emotions, and others can usually tell how he is feeling long before he can.
• Jaes is almost always moving or touching something. If he has something in his hands he can toss, he will likely toss it. If he has nothing, he will pace, or bounce his leg, or rock on his knees.
• In tir form, he rarely sits on his butt. Often, he will squat on his toes or sit on his legs/feet. This goes doubly when sitting on couches (which he tends to jump onto if they're empty).
• He likes to sit on tables, especially coffee tables and end tables. In both forms.
• When in a quiet area or when working on something, he almost always has headphones in. He has ruined multiple pairs of them by accidentally cutting the cord while working on more involved projects, but refuses to get wireless ones.
• He likes to bite things if they have a crunchy, spongy, or fleshy texture. These things are not always edible.
• In cat form, his tailtip is almost always moving.

History

Jaes's family was small but tight knit. During childhood, he idolized his older brother, Benjii, who was deeply into robotics and loved creating things. Jaes also befriended Natara during this time, but she moved away. Jaes and Benjii's mother was killed by a yaket (in kat form) when Benjii and their father were out on a hunting trip. Their father committed suicide shortly after Benjii reached adulthood, leaving Benjii and Jaes to live alone. Then, one day, Benjii didn't return home. Jaes searched for him, eventually finding a yaket trap with evidence that Benjii had been there. Since his kat form was a yaket, Jaes assumed he must have been mistaken for a true one and killed. Now, Jaes lives with a set of kat friends--actual katen, not katiren.

Relationships

Allies

• Benjii: Benjii was Jaes's brother. Jaes admired Benjii greatly and wished to be just like him.
• Bloodfang: Jaes and Bloodfang are working together to solve the killing of yakomtir Persi and the disappearances of local katiren. Although he is wary of her due to her reputation, he admires her unwillingness to bow to the status quo.
• Kendra: Kendra and Jaes had a hockey rivalry in high school that was quite one-sided (it mostly consisted of Jaes wondering why Kendra seemed so angry at him all the time). They fought each other when Kendra was serving under Slade, but once Jaes's identity was revealed, she couldn't fight him any longer, and ended up joining him. He appreciates it. They get along surprisingly well.
• Natara: Natara was his childhood friend before she moved away. He worked with her while she was Exie, not knowing that she was his lost childhood friend all along. When he learned of this, he was overjoyed, since he'd always missed her.

Foes

• Custard: Custard is working alongside Slade to take over the Yakom and forcibly turn katiren into her personal guard. Jaes can't let that happen.
• Slade: Slade aims to take over the yakom, and manipulated Kendra for her entire life. Jaes thinks he is a repugnant being and secretly wishes he was dead, but would've dare say that out loud.
• Sladison: Sladison is Custard's personal guard yaket, but seems to know more than he should. Jaes thinks there must be something more to him.

Misc

• I associate him with So Cold by Breaking Benjamin (First to Eleven's cover).
• He was originally a satire of myself that my middle school self created to dump all of my self-hatred into. I've since reclaimed him and he has taken on an identity of his own.
• He and Natara are my only original characters that have appeared in my dreams. To me, that's the closest an OC can get to being "real."

Gallery

Writing

Grain-Filled Doom

Felid, Exie, and their young sidekick Blue are stuck in a room that is slowly filling with rice.

A short story written for a class.