| 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 Ghost |
| First Appearance: | Episode 1 |
| Latest Appearance: | Episode 166 |
The Sniper is the second main character in the webcomic series "Romantically Apocalyptic" by Vitaly S. Alexius. Sniper's birthname is Charles Snippy, which explains why he tends to be called "Snippy".
Even though he has often reason to doubt it, Sniper is the most sane member of the Captain's squad (including the new recruit Engineer, who at least shows tendencies of a mad scientist).
Before the apocalypse Sniper belonged to the 1% of the population unable to connect their mind to the Internet via a neural interface and was thus unable to Interact with the Directorate's "ANNET" system.
Background
Originally, the Sniper worked for the GOOD Directorate Inc as a stereotypical, low paid pencil pusher.
A while before the apocalypse happened, he received special survival training and was transferred to the "Dead Zone Tourism" branch of G-Directorate, where he led tourists and scientists on journeys through the wasteland that 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 the wasteland. It seems that the tour was to investigate an anomaly, that the Sniper described as a 'wishing well', and that the scientists killed each other while possessed by the desire to have it for themselves. The anomaly promised the Sniper 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-controlled humanity.
Since the ANNET's transmitter towers were causing him terrible headaches and nightmares, The Sniper began sabotaging its servers. It seems he may have even been 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 ANNET's core. Whatever the 1% may have been planning, the apocalypse appears to have interfered with it.
Due to his inability to connect, The Sniper 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.
It was discovered in a page of Pilot's diary, that The Sniper claims to be an atheist (although this was after Pilot tied him to a couch and tried to get him to join "The Church of Captain") Though he does also thank God for being spared one of Captain's missions[1]. It appears that The Sniper may be of British origins.
Appearance
Sniper drinking coffee without a mask
Charles Snippy, or "The Sniper", uses a custom-created gas mask with two filters and blue goggles with white goggle-caps. The goggle-caps on the mask can move like they are his actual eyebrows, giving Snippy a wide range of expressions. He wears a black and white "New-Aged Style" Good Directorate issued officer uniform consisting of a jacket with a hoodie and black pants. It has been shown that this uniform is 100% fireproof. Until Comic #26, he carried a rifle with him. Due to Captain's rescue plan, it was destroyed inside of an Alien flying saucer where Snippy had forgotten it. He grabbed a new one in Comic #42 during a battle with the Biomatrix. Snippy has been seen wielding a handgun as well, on occasion. He is seen weilding his pistol more often in the Annet's Reawakening Arc.
In the pre-apocalyptic flashbacks, The Sniper'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 Engineer, The Sniper is the only person in Captain's group capable of being deemed "sane", unlike Captain, who is utterly insane, and Pilot, who lost most of his memories after being disconnected from the ANNET. As a result, it is usually The Sniper who is forced to carry out Captain's dangerous and often bizzare requests.
The Sniper still feels guilty not being able to protect that last group of scientists he was supposed to guide through the wasteland before the apocalypse. He feels even more guilty about the possibility that he might indirectly have caused the apocalypse either by an unconscious wish to the 'wishing well' anomaly or his attempts at destroying the ANNET. He fears loneliness, as it leads to him brooding about the mistakes in his past life. So he rather endures Captain's, Pilot's and Engineer's company over living alone. Another of The Sniper's fears is to lose his sanity to radiation poisoning and going as mentally insane as the others. After overhearing a bug, Captain's mug and the straw talking, The Sniper is half-convinced that this fear will become reality soon. He still hopes that there was a logical explanation for everything happening, nevertheless.
Shortly after that, The Sniper was kidnapped by an alien judge and confined in the spaceship of the Arbitrator. It tried to convince the captured sniper, that the Captain is only another personality of The Sniper. The Sniper also opened his backpack and recovered Captain's mask, hat, goggles and scarf. This evidence threw The Sniper into a deep identity crisis. Although in the aftermath of the Ancestors Story Arc, it is shown that the Captain is not another personality, but instead placed his/her facial wear into the Sniper's backpack.
While in the pre-apocalyptic flashbacks, The Sniper rarely could sleep due to the ANNET-induced nightmares and unaffordable sleep-time, while in contrast, 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 is quick to sleep.
Skills and Equipment
The Sniper'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. The Sniper's 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, The Sniper wears a black shirt and black pants as well as black boots and gloves.
The Sniper usually carries a rifle around, although further items in his possession are: Captain's shopping lists, a 'property of Captain' 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. He been seen shooting firearms on hand twice in the story so far, showing he has some ability to fire a loaded firearm, although he has never been shown to fire a sniper-type ballistic weapon, so the Captain may have make Charles Snippy the "Sniper" of the group in response to his last name sounding similar. The Sniper 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, The Sniper is a very fast runner, being able to outrun "Photoshop" and the giant-spider-form of the Biomatrix 117.
The Sniper seems well versed in survival skills, able to survive for an undefined time inside a mutated 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 the Captain, he seems to have a very uncommon luck. Although unlike the Captain, it doesn't tend to bring him solutions, but it does at least allows him to survive all odds, from crashing rocket-propelled subways, all the way to near-death bodily injuries, even when it includes completely illogical events in order to make it happen.
The Gas Mask
The Sniper's gas mask is a running gag, especially among 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. Another running gag, seen in the Cancer Story Arc is, that The Sniper's face was always at least partially obscured in the flashbacks.
Relations to other characters
Until the Engineer joined the squad, the 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.
The Sniper fights with Pilot often, perhaps originating from a plot by Pilot to get him eaten by a whale. This resulted in the 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 orders by the Captain.
So far, the Sniper has no idea that the Engineer is actually the very same Dr. Alexander Gromov, who made his life miserable before the end of the world, and whose actions more or less directly caused the apocalypse.
During the beginning of the Ancestors Story Arc, The Sniper get's hold of Captain's "cancer-scarf." To his dread, he soon realizes that the scarf in fact is, what remained of the Biomatrix 117. Since the Biomatrix was trapped in the same way as the Sniper is by the Arbitrator, it seems to no longer wish to harm the Sniper and instead even granted him his wish for another flashback. With the help of the Biomatrix, The Sniper gained access to some of the genetic memories of his earliest ancestors, and a glimpse into his future ancestors.