about;

Adrian John Bennett

PERSONALITY cw: child abuse At first glance, Ade seems to be a propaganda-perfect soldier: loyal, competent, dependable, and heroic. He’s not only a skilled fighter and marksman, but also readily puts himself in danger to protect others, be they squadmates or civilians. Despite being rather soft-spoken and gentle, Ade is the leader of his squad due to his capacity for strong and empathetic guidance. His friendly demeanor and boyish sense of humor don’t hurt either. All that said, Ade isn’t nearly as put-together as he seems to be. He suffers from C-PTSD due to a childhood of physical and emotional abuse from his father, compounded by the horrors he’s faced serving in the military. Due to the many times he witnessed his mother being beaten by his father, his panic is severely triggered by the sight of injured or frightened women, to the point of vomiting and loss of bodily control. He is also wary of unexpected contact with other men and can react with explosive anger if he feels like he’s being manhandled. Furthermore, despite being a highly decorated soldier and respected leader, Ade has a very low estimation of himself. He feels an immense sense of responsibility to protect the people around him and as a result suffers from intense guilt and shame when something does go wrong. This is exacerbated by a dose of toxic masculinity he got from his father, which causes him to feel like a failure for not protecting his mother despite being the “man” in the family. All that said, Ade still possesses strong leadership skills and is good at settling conflicts and soothing frayed nerves. His squadmates defer to him because they know he has their best interests at heart and that he’d never intentionally lead them astray. It is a testament to Ade’s compassionate style of command that his much less gentle squadmates still treat him as an authority even if they sometimes tease him about being a soft touch. In many ways, Ade is exactly what he looks like: an exemplary soldier and a decent man. In others, he is only someone trying to fit into that role—while dealing with a host of issues that make that ideal of unshakable confidence and fearlessness seemingly unobtainable.

ABOUT Adrian “Ade” Bennett is a character from The Wess’har Wars, a series of science-fiction novels written by Karen Traviss. The series follows a group of human soldiers, scientists, and spies deployed to investigate an alien world on which a human colony has disappeared. During the course of their mission, they find themselves embroiled in the political and ecological conflict between several other sentient alien species. One of these conflicts involves a micro-organism known as c’nataat to the local Wess’har aliens, a symbiote that colonizes its host to optimize its chances of survival and thus the survival of the symbiote within it. The c’nataat does this not only by granting its host accelerated healing, but also forcing their bodies to rapidly adapt to hostile conditions—for example growing gills if forced underwater. This renders its host extremely hard to kill. Ade is a human soldier who finds himself accidentally infected with c’nataat. Fearing the repercussions that could come with introducing the symbiote to the larger Earth population, Ade voluntarily strands himself on the Wess’har planet of Bezer'ej along with two other c’nataat hosts in order to contain the infection. There, the three of them attempt to form a functional family while also adjusting to the vastly different culture and expectations of life among the Wess’har and their own rapidly changing biology. APPEARANCE Ade is described as a human male of average height with mid-brown hair and eyes. Although he is very physically fit, it is easy to miss this at first glance due to his passive way of holding himself. Other characters describe his general manner as that of someone totally unremarkable and who doesn’t mind staying that way. He has a tattoo of the Royal Marines badge on his left shoulder, with some traces of violet bioluminescence underneath the ink. He speaks with a British accent. Ade’s day-to-day outfit is a set of arctic-camo Royal Navy fatigues, with the identifiers and medals ripped off. For characters with a keen sense of smell, Ade also has a very distinct scent. When relaxed, the smell is similar to sandalwood. Meanwhile, distress smells like citrus, annoyance like grapefruit oil, and anger like vinegar. Non-human characters susceptible to pheromone signals will note that the sandalwood scent tends to produce feelings of warmth and tranquility. Unaltered human characters may be able to faintly detect these scents, but they will not be as strong and will not have any effect on their mood. ABILITIES C’nataat grants Ade a host of abilities in and of itself and has also altered his body with a few more permanent changes. To start, c’nataat gives Ade extraordinary powers of self-regeneration. A shallow cut will heal in seconds. A broken bone in one to a few hours. Even being freeze-boiled alive in the void of space can be survived, given a lengthy recovery period afterwards. C’nataat also allows Ade to rapidly adapt to hostile conditions, whether that means growing gills to survive underwater or the ability to survive on alternate food sources if nothing conventional is available. In addition, c’nataat has already made a couple of changes to Ade’s body, mostly for the purpose of fitting in with wess’har society. For one, he has an enhanced sense of smell, along with the ability to emit and interpret pheromone signals. He also has the ability to speak as a wess’har would—that is to say, with double-voiced speech, like two voices layered on top of the other. Finally, he can see some ultraviolet colors normally invisible to humans.

BASICS NAME: Adrian "Ade" Bennett CANON: The Wess'har Wars CANON POINT: Mid-Matriarch AGE: In his 30s RELATIONSHIP: It's Complicated OCCUPATION: Former Royal Marine Sergeant SPECIES: Human-C'nataat Chimera PERMISSIONS BACKTAGGING: Y 4TH-WALLING: N THREADJACKING: Y MIND READING: Y FIGHTING: Y ROMANCE: MAYBE INJURY: Y KILLING: ASK OOC NAME: Sue JOURNAL: crossroads_inn PLURK: crimsonxiphos

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