Personality

Charlie is, as most people would describe him, one of the most caring people you will meet and a performer at heart. He’s smart, skilled, very ambitious, but most of all, a hard worker. As selfless as he is, however, he does often forget about himself and pushes himself too hard. He does a lot for others, but little for himself, and tends to be too tough on himself when he gets things wrong while being far more forgiving to others.

Along with that, he tends to also bottle up his emotions so he can keep acting cheerful around others which often leads to him becoming stressed easily. Overall, although he’s a great and happy man to be around, he often worries about being good enough and until Fred gets the treatment he needs, he might never be satisfied.

Appearance

For the most part, Charlie appears no different from any average human of his age and class. He's light-skinned and has dark brown eyes and medium-length, slightly curly brown hair. His head is square in shape with wrinkles under his cheeks, a slightly pointy nose, and a prominent chin. In terms of build he's thin but without much muscle and stands at 5'9. The most noticeable feature when you first see him, however, is unsurprisingly the two pairs of giant butterfly wings protruding from his back. They have the appearance of a rough texture (although they're relatively smooth) and have darker spots and wavy stripes in the pattern. The underside is a dull brown, but the upperside is a brilliant blue.

Considering his lack of much money, Charlie usually has to work with what he can get in terms of outfits. Because of that, he's often not very stylish, but when he's got a show to perform, he always tries to look his best out of his slight fear of appearing poor. The outfit he uses the most consists of a red-brown coat with four stripes draping down from the middle and white buttoned cuffs. The collar is simple but has four diamonds and fire-like patterns painted on. The same fire-like patterns are also on a white, stitched-in patch on the left upper sleeve. There's a second patch on the right side of his chest with a four on it. He also has somewhat baggy brown pants of two slightly different shades, often no shirt, and a pair of simple brown loafers with the right one bandaged. Finally, he also likes to put on makeup before shows, but he doesn't tend to go all-out and instead most often has circular blushes painted on both cheeks.

Early Life

When Charlie appeared in the world, he was quickly found and taken in by an orphanage further inland where he was named and raised alongside other children that were without parents or given away. As a child, however, he was very shy and didn't make many friends. Although he appeared to be a normal human as a baby, he'd eventually start growing wings from his back which stuck out as very peculiar at first. When he was around 5-6, he'd finally make one friend: a younger girl named Eloise who he'd frequently play with. Soon, however, she'd be moved to a different orphanage to control numbers and he wouldn't see her again for a long time.

By the time he was 9, he was capable of flight, but entering his teenage years, he'd often get teased by the kids he tried to make friends with. He spent most of his days feeling isolated and doing nothing, albeit entranced by the song and dance he'd sometimes see on film. Eventually, though, he became too old to stay any longer and was forced to move out. At first he felt excited to finally be free, but over time his now independent life would become harder. Even as he moved closer to the ocean at the age of 17 and finally got a cheap place to stay, he still couldn't find his spark. Although he sometimes performed (with far less complexity compared to his current circus performances) for people interested in his wings and sometimes got donations for doing so, he’d live off old scraps for a long time, until one day he met Fred…

Later Years

He was taking his next occasional walk to the harbors when he found him, abandoned by his parents who’d gone off on one of the ships. Sympathy got the better of him and, seeing nobody else around, Charlie took the then 4-year-old boy home to the old, simply-constructed house he still lives in today. It wasn’t long before he found out about Fred’s illness, and from then on he decided he’d do anything in his power to get him the treatment. That also meant deciding what he wanted to do in life, at least at that point, and because of Fred’s fascination with circuses, he decided that was what he was going to do. For the next two years, he set off to bring a circus to the small harbor town and, hopefully, collect enough money to save his new brother’s life.

Over time he’d eventually befriend a few other folks in the town who agreed to help him with his dream, and all of them were fairly poor like himself. Johnny, who he'd met one day practicing flips, joined first. Then there was the trapeze duo Carrie and Jennifer. Last but not least, he met Eloise- the same one that he hadn't seen in years- who agreed to help him with her tightrope-walking skills. Charlie himself would be the star of the show, using his wings to fly through flaming hoops in an impressive display.

As more and more people came to see them, their circus became more and more popular with each performance. Charlie especially made quite a name for himself, but he still never lost sight of the reason he was doing what he did and made sure to always keep saving his money. During this time, Fred’s condition started to slowly worsen, and Charlie worked extra hard to make sure they always did everything right and made each performance better than the rest. Although things have been going well up until now, he needs to make enough money for Fred’s treatment and still has a long way to go.

• - Charlie doesn't like people knowing that his brother is ill, or even that either of them are poor. He prefers earning his money honestly and fairly through just his skill and hard work and plans to keep it that way.
• - Although he has full control over his wings, sometimes they do little things subconsciously. Most notably, they tend to close up when he's startled or scared and do little flutters when he's particularly moony.
• - Charlie's creation was inspired by the song "Charlie and Fred" by The Hollies, along with just the vibes the album gave me in general. Although he and the song share some similarities, they're pretty different due to me mishearing lyrics. Most notably: Fred isn't a human in the song but instead a grazing animal. (I, for some reason, never caught the word "grazing" in the song until I looked the lyrics up.)