Manuel Richards

✦ Origins

Manny was born into an orphanage and was never adopted out of it. He spent his younger years hanging with shady crowds, shoplifting and pickpocketing to make up for the gaps in funding for the orphanage, and doing his best to simultaneously hide his homelife while take care of his siblings as best as a scrappy teenager could. When he turned 18, he immediately enlisted into the military, mostly due to not wanting to be under the support of the orphanage any longer and not immediately be homeless or go into debt. Manny ran two tours, and during his last year got asked to cover in a security and investigations department. It was in there he found an interest in working with police investigations and ending up enrolling into an academy promptly after finishing that tour.

During his four years in the police academy, Manny met and fell deeply in love with Arin Mallory, who was going though the same program as him. The two instantly clicked together and spent a happy six years, getting engaged before Arin’s ex-almost boyfriend decided to have words with Manny. Right after, Manny started having situations where doors to other realms and universes would open for him at random times, forcing him to take part of some extensive adventure, and then returning him to his home without any time having passed.

While confusing, this doesn’t bother Manny too much at first. He’s unsure if these are dreams or actual traveling situations, though the more that they happen, the more he leans into the latter. Especially when he tends to end up harmed from the excursions he takes, as well having the ability to lose or gain items that he still has even when he returns back to his home. Manny starts to become uncomfortable when he notices sometimes these events pull more than just him through, and begins to blame himself to any harm that comes to those who are near him when it happens, whether or not it was actually his fault.

✦ Romance

Manny is a helpless flirt and romantic. Even while head over heels for Arin, he will constantly flirt himself into relationships, without quite realizing what he’s doing sometimes. He doesn’t quite realize he’s polyam, and while he keeps excellent communication with his lovers about his intended actions, his more natural flirtations will get the best of him and cause rifts occasionally.

Thinking that no harm could come of it, especially in the early years when Manny considered the door adventures he’d take to be dreams, Manny started to collect a long string of relations he’d have in these other worlds. Due to the weird time aspects with his powers, some would be quick one night stands, while others would last for years and then suddenly be cut short when he was yanked back to his own world without much warning. This has started to cause him to pull back from all of his personal connections with people, becoming used to the idea that nothing ever lasts, and anything that goes poorly is the fault of him and the events that happen around him.

✦ The Smear

Manny fell into the Smear after having a very brief and harmful encounter with Ax. He woke up, recognizing the land that the Smear was one he had visited before, but had since drastically changed. As he’s explored further and started to meet many others he’s met in the past through his own reoccurring adventures, Manny has started to ponder the idea that he might be the cause of this happening, and has begun the age old cycle once more.

Manny has a scar related to ever person in the smear he’s met, which is also somehow tied to them. But since he doesn’t know what he is or how his powers are useable, not even fully realizing that this is something that he’s always had and not just Smear Weirdness, the reason for connection remains completely unknown. His powers have also kept him from being harmed in the same spot twice, perhaps because it’d overwrite a connection he’s already made.