| Sniper | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Species: | Human |
| Notable Colors: | Blue |
| Occupation: | Secretary (Formerly) Dead Zone Tour Guide (Formerly) Minion of Captain |
| Aliases: | Charles Snippy Mr. Snippy Snippy |
| First Appearance: | 1 Episode Episode 1 |
| Latest Appearance: | 106 Episode Episode 106 |
Sniper is the second main character in the webcomic series "Romantically Apocalyptic" by Vitaly S Alexius. He is refered to as "Sniper" but it is found out that his actual name is "Charles Snippy". He is often called "Mr.Snippy" or just "Snippy" by Captain. Other than his visions of the past, present and future and inability to discern which is which, while trapped in the Biomass 117, he is considered the only sane member of the group, besides maybe the new recruit Engineer.
The color associated with Snippy is blue.
Background
In the flashbacks after he gets stuck in the monster known as Biomass 117, it is found out that he worked for the GOOD Directorate Inc as a stereotypical pencil pusher. Snippy was part of the 1% of the population unable to connect their mind to the Internet via a neural interface, and thus unable to Interact with The Directorate's "ANNET" system.
The ANNET was the computer program, which controlled the technology and back-ups of people's memories which were stored in a cloud database. It also allowed people to browse the internet in their sleep.
Since the ANNET's transmitter towers were causing him terrible headaches and nightmares, Snippy began sabotaging it's servers. It seems he was even part of a plan by the 1% to take out all the transmitter towers. The sniper doesn't remember though, whether he actually went as far as sabotaging the ANNET's core. Whatever the 1% may have been planning, the apocalypse interferred with it.
Due to his inability to connect, Snippy was able to survive (with all of his memory and mind intact) from ANNET going berserk, when Captain corrupted her data banks by spilling tea over them.
A while before the apocalypse he was transferred to the "Dead Zone Tourism" branch of G-Directorate, where he led tourists and scientists on journeys through the wasteland the Earth had become due to massive chemical and radioactive pollution caused by the Directorate (and other companies). The last tour he guided resulted in the deaths of every single one of the scientists he was supposed to protect, leaving him alone in wasteland. It seems the ill fated tour was to investigate an anomalie Snippy describes as a 'wishing well' and the scientists killed each other possessed by the desire to have it all for themselves. The anomalie promised Snippy that all of his wishes would come true, he ignored it, but secretly fears, that it was his wish, that brought the beginning of the apocalypse, since he was sick of the ANNET-controled humanity.
It was discovered in a page of Pilot's diarythat Sniper claims to be an atheist (granted this was after Pilot tied him to a couch and tried to get him to join "The Church of Captain" so this could've been nothing more than a witty response from the Sniper). It is further suggested in his ask-blog entrees, that he is of British origin.
Appearance
Sniper drinking coffee without a mask
Sniper is seen wearing a custom-created gasmask with blue goggles, but unlike other characters, it is shown that his goggle-caps can act like eyebrows, giving him a wide range of expresssions. He wears a black and white "New Age Styled" (Good Directorate issue) Officer Uniform with hoodie that is 100% fireproof. Until Comic #26, he carried a rifle with him. It was destroyed, with a flying saucer, where Snippy forgot it. He grabbed a new one in Comic #42 during a battle with the Biomass.
Pre-apocalyptic Snippy's face is shown to be thin with scruffy dark brown hair and light blue eyes. It is unknown how much his appearance has changed since then.
Personality
Maybe aside from the recently recruited Engineer, Sniper is the only person in Captain's group deemed "sane", unlike Captain, who is utterly insane, and Pilot, who lost most of his memories when being disconnected from the ANNET, built a Father-Son relationship with Captain and almost worships the Captain to the point of religious fanaticism. As a result it is usually Mr. Snippy, who is forced to carry out Captain's dangerous and often bizzare requests.
The sniper feels still guilty not being able to protect that last group of scientists he was supposed to guide through the wasteland before the apocalypse. And even more guilty about the possibility, that he might indirectly have caused the apocalypse either by an unconscious wish to the 'wishing well' anomalie or his attempts at destroying the ANNET. He fears loneliness for this reason as it leads to him brooding about the mistakes in his past life. So he rather endures Captain's, Pilot's and Engie's company over living alone. Another of Snippy's fears is to loose his sanity to radiation poisoning and going as crazy as the others. After overhearing a bug and several inanimate objects talking Snippy is half convinced, that this fear will become reality soon. He still hoped, that there was a logical explanation for everything happening, nevertheless. The Arbitrator trying to convince him, that the Captain is only another personality of the sniper has thrown Snippy into a deep identity crisis.
While pre-apocalyptic Snippy rarely got any sleep due to the ANNET-induced nightmares and unaffordable sleep-time, his post apocalyptic self is a rather heavy sleeper. Captain and Pilot have taken advantage of this repeatedly to dress him up in crazy costumes or play other pranks on him, while the Sniper was fast asleep.
When startled or scared Snippy often utters a: "BWAH?!" .
Skills and Equipment
Mr. Snippy's headgear consists of a gasmask with two filters and a goggle with blue glasses and goggle-caps. He has begun to wrap a scarf around his head to avoid injuries, since he gets hit by blunt objects quite often thanks toCaptain's and Pilot's shenanigans. He probably wears a shroud to complete his headgear as well but as the scarf it would be hidden under the hood of his jacket. The jacket has a black and white pattern, several pockets and shows a small (Good-Directorate) G-emblem with the label 'fireproof' on the left front side. Aside from that, Snippy wears a black shirt and black pants as well as black boots and gloves.
Snippy usually carries a rifle around. Further items in his possession are: Captain's shopping lists, a 'property of Captein' note, a Geiger-counter, an old calendar of the year 2012 and a pocketknife. He briefly had a 'bag of cancer summoning', a rubix cube and a half destroyed cellphone in his possession as well.
As his title suggests, he is the squad's sniper, meaning he should have the necessary sharp-shooting skills. However the Engineer stated (in his ask-blog?) that Snippy is a terrible gunman, which could mean that Captain just made him the Sniper due to his last name sounding so similar to Sniper. On the other hand we have seen him shooting twice in the story so far and he hit, what he was aiming for. Snippy also seems to have a fairly good resilience to stand up to all the traumas and shocks that he seems to receive in carrying out the duties that his insane boss assigns to him. Last but not least Snippy is a very fast runner, being able to outrun Photoshop and the giant-spider-form of the Biomass.
Snippy seems well versed in survival skills, able to survive for an undefined time inside a whale and keep surviving in the nuclear-hazard city. He learned his survival skills, such as tracking and gun-handling, during his training as a Dead Zone tour-guide.
Similar to Captain, he seems to have a very uncommon luck. Though it doesn't tend to bring him solutions, it at least allows him to survive all odds; from crashing rocket-subways to deadly wounds, even when it includes completely illogical events in order to make it happen.
The Gas Mask
Snippy's gas mask is a running gag, expecially around the readers, as it seems to represent his emotions with the goggle-caps that are always left opened in a 90º angle. They act as his eyebrows, making all his expressions, since the gas mask conceals the entirety of his face.
Relations to other characters
Until Engie joined the squad Sniper was the most serious person in the group and the only one with any amount of common sense. This still puts him at odds with the more whimsical Captain, yet the two are shown to get along fine. He is shown to express contempt and sarcasm at Captain from time to time.
Snippy fights with Pilot often, perhaps originating from a plot by Pilot to get him eaten by a whale. This resulted in Sniper attempting to strangle Pilot after he escaped. Additionally Pilot likes to play tricks on him or steal his stuff, while the Sniper is sleeping - with or without orrders by Captain.
So far Mr. Snippy has no idea that Engie is actually the very same Dr. Alexander Gromov, who made his life miserable before the end of the world and who's actions more or less directly caused the apocalypse.