Zephyr

Other Names: Harvey (actual name)

Species: Staraptor

Gender: Female (trans)

Pronouns: she/her

Occupation: Guitarist

Physical Description 

• Tall, spiky, generally frightening
• Has a love of short skirts and giant capes/coats/etc.
• Doesn't talk, only glares down her bird nose at you from behind glossy pointy shades
• Is a master of controlling her facial expressions
  • She usually aims for "lips pursed in a vague unreadable sneer"
• Wields an extremely impractical-looking guitar and an extremely impractical-looking hairstyle

Personality 

• Lonely by nature
• Puts on a bristly persona for performances, but the actual person playing Zephyr is perfectly friendly and smily 
• Is always paying attention, though she doesn't talk much
  • The fact that she doesn't talk has turned into one of the "things" that defines Zephyr as a character, when in reality it's because she just doesn't like how her voice sounds
• Has a sharp mind and a sharp wit
  • Harvey will do a bit of the Zephyr character for comedic effect while joking around with her friends
  • For some reason her jokes become twice as funny when she's restricting her face to a cold smirk while all her friends are falling over themselves laughing
• She's a private person in general and really only comes alive when she's with the other members of the band and not performing

Likes 

• Pastel, flowery, cutesy clothing
  • She feels like she's too pointy and spooky to pull that sort of look off herself, but her bandmates keep encouraging her and buying her big fluffy sweaters
• Spicy food - really spicy food
  • She's the sort that would look you dead in the eyes while slowly chewing a ghost pepper
• Dramatic entrances
• Power chords, power slides
• Looking like an anime villain
• Cutesy fan art of her

Dislikes 

• Previously, the sound of her own voice
• Being recognized out of costume by anyone other than her close friends
• Tangled, matted hair that's got so much product on it and just has to be washed there's no way around it
• Sour food
  • Her tongue can withstand the horrors of capsaicin no problem but it recoils in disgust at citric acid

Personal Info 

• Harvey's actually fine with how she sounds now, but it took a long time to get to a place where she's comfortable with herself
  • Zephyr the character has been silent for years so Harvey still feels like she can't talk while in character because it's been a thing for so long
  • She never planned for her stage persona to be silent, but when the band was first formed she wasn't fully comfortable with herself yet, hated how masculine she sounded, and didn't want other people noticing and talking about that
    • Instead of singing backup or contributing to talk show appearances, she clammed up out of shame and anxiety and kept her stoic face on to play it off like it was a character thing - within just a few performances/TV appearances, "Zephyr doesn't talk" actually was a character thing
  • Her band always defends her with silly excuses for why she stays silent, because the actual reason - dysphoria - is none of a talk show host's business
  • They make up a new excuse for each person that asks (because everyone is going to ask)
    • She lost her tongue in the war
    • She sold her voice to the devil in return for mad guitar skills
    • Someone dared her to tongue kiss a shark
    • She's cursed to remain silent until she finds her true love
    • She's one third of a pinball wizard
    • She OD'd on ghost peppers
    • She had to make a vow of silence when she joined her secret martial arts society
    • She talks about everything like it's Fight Club
    • She's exercising her Fifth Amendment rights
    • We made that joke about her hair back in '14 and she's been giving us all the silent treatment ever since
    • She didn't realize the curling iron was "for external use only"
    • She cut out her tongue as a tribute to her fallen warrior tribe
    • She sacrificed her voice to a volcano god
    • She traded her vocal cords for a bountiful harvest
    • Her voicebox is locked and we can't find the key
    • She let piranhas eat out of her mouth once
    • A jealous witch stole her voice
    • Her voice ran away to a butterfly farm
    • She held that stoic face for so long that her entire body got stuck like that
    • She's still waiting for us to laugh at a joke she told six months ago
    • She's meant to be seen, not heard
    • Her voice is off on paid medical leave
    • Zephyr's Voice is a stretch goal that can be unlocked by donating to our Kickstarter page
    • Her voice is so angelic that the last time she sang, God himself appeared in the sky to listen up close and blinded everyone who was there
    • She's like Cyclops from the X-Men, except the lasers come from her mouth and so she has to keep it shut and listen not all these stories can be winners
    • Her voice is on strike until we agree to give it better health benefits
    • We swear we saw her voice just this morning but we don't know where we last put it
    • She sang too much Taylor Swift and lost her voice privileges
    • We laid off her voice due to budget custs
    • Talking makes her break out in hives
    • She's a mermaid who wished to live on land
  • A more accurate explanation: "Have you ever listened to a recording of yourself talking and thought that your voice sounded wrong and weird?  And then realized that that's just what you sound like, and you hate it?  That's kind of like the feeling Zephyr gets every time she talks."
• Trained in martial arts, feels like it augments her dance moves and fits with her character
• Would be equally at home in the cockpit of a fighter jet and in a glittery black and gold mermaid costume
• Appreciates the fearspect she commands on stage
• Acrobatic; used to take gymnastics when she was younger and honestly wants to get back into it sometime
  • She can still do the splits, which she's definitely taken advantage of more than once

Date of Creation / Adoption: December 25, 2008

Other Notes: Based on the second Pokémon I ever caught!!