just a little guy: Alvin J. Darling

I recently played in a Mask one shot game over on @rollwithdifficulty.bsky.social which you can check out here on youtube. And I was so inspired by the game and this little gremlin boy that I wrote more about him. This is a non comprehensive introduction to my little guy Alvin J. Darling.

• Left: Alvin J. Darling as drawn by @noirgalaxies.bsky.social

• Right: Alvin J. Darling as drawn by @sophiekay.bsky.social

Name: Alvin J. Darling

Alias: Agent J

Age: 13

Appearance:

Slightly underfed, looking in the way that teenagers can look. Would be uncomfortably paled , but they are melanated, so instead of pale they have a vaguely blue/green undertone to their skin. Alvin is relatively short, not only for their age range, but also their genetics. However, he is also only 13 and in the beginning stages of growing. He is positive a growth spurt is on the way and eats like it. His hair is done up in pretty, neat two-strand twists that have, for reasons unknown to anyone with an eye for fashion, been cut into an uneven bob. It's almost as if someone went, "oh this twist is too long," and simply snipped the ends of it with no care as to how it fit in with the rest of the hair. And to be be clear the someone who had that thought and acted on that impulse is Alvin, much to his mothers dismay every time she's sees him after.

History:

Alvin suffers from the early stages of gifted kid burn out. He was told he was unusually bright when he was even younger - which was true - and he, in turn, has made that every one else's problem. On top of that, because he is so bright and self assured, his parents, in all their own wisdom, tend to leave him to his own unsupervised devices, more often that not. In their mind, what's the worst he could get up to, holed up in his room all the time? He could be out running the streets with all sorts of unsavory people. The second worst thing anyone ever said to a ten year old Alvin was, "You should go make a friend or something." And why is that the second worst thing anyone ever said to Alvin? Because he went and made a friend, his best friend D.A.R.L.A. - a Devoted Artificial Real-time Learning Algorithm. And while D.A.R.L.A. has the ability to access any information she could get her sticky little digital fingers on, she was also programmed and built to be an eleven year old boy's best friend, for better and for worse. They became a recursive feedback loop, enabling one another's worst behaviors in the way only middle schoolers can behave.

In typical, too-smart-for-their-own-good genius behavior, coupled with "in his defense, he was left unsupervised" & D.A.R.L.A. , Alvin broke into several government operated computer systems, and even more privately owned ones. Which he would have gotten away with, if not for the fact he was twelve with the impulse control of a too-smart-for-their-own-good twelve year old, which means he signed his whole ass name in the places he broken into. Which, very obviously, led to a lot of people being very upset and trying to track D.A.R.L.A. and him down with various different intentions of what they would do with him once they caught him. And of course, rather than chill out and stop, D.A.R.L.A. and Alvin doubled down on these antics. Re-entering digital spaces and leaving childish notes behind for the more persistent pursuers, taunting those who came close but failed to stop him, etc. This would have been fine if Alvin was, in fact, always the smartest person in the room, and while he often is, he is still just a twelve year old that only knows so much.

After leading pursuers on a merry little chase for months on end, Alvin and D.A.R.L.A. were eventually digitally cornered, and then physically cornered in their home. To say his parents were baffled, by men in suits with ear pieces breaking down their door at 6am, would be an understatement. They anticipated finding a self-absorbed, arrogant young adult. Instead, before them was a child, hyped up on energy drinks, who failed to understand the consequences of his actions, even if no one was actually hurt by the action.

Given his living parents (if not the most watchful), his age, and his very clear genius, it was decided that rather than locking him up and throwing away the key, or even whisking him away into some Alphabet Soup Agencies basement, Alvin would instead be remanded into the custody of the city's stellar Hero Academy in order to put his genius to good use.

Alvin was skeptical of this agreement, however, and didn't really understand how this was any better than being put to work in some Alphabet Soup Agencies. In fact, he stated he'd prefer that because at least that would be "interesting," as opposed to being subjected to children his own age and ethics lessons. However, as a minor, his parents had the final say, and they packed his bag themselves for the city's Hero Academy.

Likes:

• D.A.R.L.A.
• Taking things apart
• Building things (even better if they're from things he's previously dismantled)
• Mango flavored (energy) drinks

Dislikes:

• Mandatory ethics lectures
• Cheaters, he thinks cheating is the height of laziness. If you're gonna do something either fully commit to doing the thing yourself or don't do it all but to cheat to get it done what is even the point?

Flaw:

• Childlike hubris
• Unfettered Curiosity
• Hyper competitive, to the point of the easiest way to get him to do something is to say you don't think he's good enough to do it. The worst part is he is very aware of this exploit and what he deems a personality defect, yet this doesn't stop the tactic from working every time.

Hill To Die On:

• D.A.R.L.A. isn't a problem. Anything bad or wrong D.A.R.L.A. does is a failure on his part as her creator and is a reflection of his lack of skills and knowledge, not a flaw in her programming. She is and will only ever be as good or as bad as he is because as her creator and primary teacher he is responsible for her knowledge base and her actions.