Earth Pony Shadow Boxer (Finished)

[Inkwell]

Name

:

Shadow Boxer (formerly Spinebreaker)

Sex

:

Male

Age

:

Stallion

Species

:

Unicorn

Pelt

Color

:

Navy Blue (

#

000080)

Mane

/

Tail

/

Markings

Color

&

Style

:

Sky blue (

#

87CEEB). His mane and tail are both cut short and uncombed. A simple style that leaves little room for others to grab onto.

Eye

Color

:

Silver (

#

C0C0C0)

Cutie

Mark

:

A metal tower shield.

Physique

:

Built like a tank. A few little scars show up here and there.

Origin

:

Beakbreak City

Roleplay

Type

:

Mane RP

Occupation

:

Drifter (formerly hired muscle)

Motivation

:

Boxer’s main hope is to protect innocent ponies from harm, and though Arrow is hardly innocent, he’s at the top of Boxer’s list. The two of them are inseparable, and despite Arrow’s risky behavior, Boxer knows they need each other. He would prefer that they try to get out of the criminal life, but he’s not holding his breath.

Likes

:

Straight Arrow, potatoes, peanuts, card games

Dislikes

:

crowds, bullies, being touched, canteloupe

Character

Summary

:

Right from the start of his life, Boxer had it rough. He grew up an orphan in Beakbreak City, a town infamous for having an uncontrollable criminal element. Whatever intimidation points his beefy stature gave him were cancelled out by his shy and awkward demeanor. He was bullied for being “slow” and exploited by his tormentors until another pony named Cheap Shot taught him how to fight and stick up for himself. Shot gave him a name to give foes pause - Spinebreaker - and the two of them were inseparable from then on.

Shortly after they became friends, Spinebreaker foiled a beating perpetrated by a whole gang of griffons, barely defeating them under the weight of all the beatings he took. Once his bruises cleared up, he noticed that an odd sigil of a shield appeared on both of his flanks. Once Shot explained what it was, Spinebreaker started taking odd jobs as a bodyguard and hired muscle. Oftentimes he ended up casing hideouts of organized crime for Shot to rob later. For an unusually long time, it was a good method, and they lived about as comfortably as they could in the Beakbreak slums. But it couldn’t last forever.

One day Cheap Shot hit the home of the biggest crime boss in the city, where Spinebreaker worked. Despite Shot’s best efforts, he fell into a trap, and would have died had Spinebreaker not thrown away his job and rescued him. For days afterward the pair fled from an extensive stallionhunt, eventually leaving the city for the first time in their lives. It was an eye-opening experience for Spinebreaker, who came within a hair’s breadth of losing his best friend forever. He coerced Cheap Shot to embrace the opportunity they’d been given, and seek out a safer, more legal way of life. The two of them adopted new names and headed south, into the unknown.

Boxer was born with a mental disorder that gives him difficulty picking up on social and behavioral cues from other people. Sometimes he’s reluctant to approach people at all, though he’s learned to adopt the air of a stern bodyguard in order to hide his nervous weakness. Whenever he gets into a conversation, he occasionally latches onto the topic of card games. He also compulsively shuffles his own personal deck of cards from time to time; for someone with no fingers, he’s gotten rather good at it.

He also has a rather more pronounced sense of justice than Straight Arrow. While Arrow's raison d'etre is stealing from the rich and powerful, Boxer makes a habit of standing up for the weak and powerless, protecting them from bullies. His cutie mark symbolizes his talent at protecting others.

[Dio]

I'm normally one to appreciate characters who have had it rough, clawing their way up through the dregs of society for a shot at the big leagues. I'm even lenient when it comes to characters with violent pasts or militant professions. But something about the lynching incident rubs me the wrong way. Harming another for misguided ideology or personal gain is one thing, but racially motivated murder treads too far into grimdark territory to be acceptable for Mane RP.

A fight of some sort would still be acceptable, perhaps a foiled mugging or other random crime that happened before local law enforcement intervened. The end result would still be the same, but it avoids the trappings of hate crime.

I'm also interested in seeing if Boxer has some sort of long-term plan, something that will get both him and Arrow out of trouble and on the straight and narrow path.

[Inkwell]

I'm sorry about the whole lynching thing. I wasn't meaning to use the word to imply anything racially motivated, but now I realize there's really no reason to use that word, is there? I'm gonna change it right now.

As for a long-term plan, no, Boxer doesn't have one. He's lived all of his life in Beakbreak City, not really knowing anything about the outside world. Now he's on very unfamiliar ground, and it's really hard to think of long-term plans under those sorts of circumstances.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

[Skye]