Sam Yao (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
voiceinthedark) wrote2013-07-02 05:40 pm
voiceinthedark) wrote2013-07-02 05:40 pm
OOC | Application
PLAYER
Name: Zalia
Journal Username: zalia
E-mail: zaliachimera [@] gmail.com
AIM/PLURK: Plurk – zaliachimera, AIM - ZaliaChimera
Current Characters at Luceti: Clint Barton/Hawkeye – MCU -asthehawkflies
Max Woodville – Original -abjurer
CHARACTER
Name: Sam Yao
Canon: Zombies, Run!
Gender: Male
Age: 22 (no canon age is given but he says that at the start of the apocalypse, he was in his 4th year of university. He seems the type to go straight from high school which would put him at about 21 at the start of the outbreak and at least several months have passed since then)
Wing Color: Brown, black and grey, like a British sparrow - http://www.lifessense.com/wp/wp-content/photos/male-house-sparrow-5.jpg
Canon Point: Shortly after Season 2, Mission 4, once Runner 5 has returned to Abel Township after the attempt on their life. I'm also choosing to believe that this is before the first Side mission where Jack is found.
History:
While Sam has more backstory than most characters in Zombies, Run! I've still had to speculate on parts of his history which I've incdicated)
The Runner's Guide put out by the creators is a good guide to the Grey Plague and the days following the outbreak.
Sam was born and raised in England, the eldest child and only son of a Chinese father and English mother, and with one younger sister who he was very fond of. It's probable that he grew up not too far from the area that would become Abel Township (he seems to be very familiar with the surrounding area, including knowing a specific pizza place and the locations of multiple comic and hobby shops), if not in the town itself, then in one of the surrounding villages.
Although his family were generally loving and took good care of him, his relationship with his father was never the best. He was pushed to excel in academics from a young age, with his father making his disappointment known whenever Sam didn't live up to expectations (Sam states that his dad got so angry when Sam didn't get good grades in French, telling Sam that he had dishonoured his family, and that was a subject his dad didn't even care about). While Sam put in a lot of work, it was likely to the detriment of his social life and led to a huge amount of insecurity and need for approval. With so much pressure to succeed and likely little time to spend with friends, Sam turned to the internet and other solitary 'geeky' activities instead. He's canonically shown to be into comics (DC and Marvel), and has a working knowledge of internet lingo (calling Runner 10 a BAMF).
He lived a relatively normal life for the most part, managing to keep up his grades a reasonable amount. It's during high school that he developed an interest in the radio, expressing an interest in becoming a DJ to his parents. This met with fierce disapproval from his father who insisted on a more academic career and so Sam ended up applying for an engineering degree. He managed to get good enough grades to get into university and when the time came, went off to college.
It turned out that he was awful at engineering. He had no interest in the subject, and while he tried very hard, he just could not deal with the subject, barely scraping by each year. While he mostly managed to hide his poor grades from his father, it was obvious that he wasn't doing very well and certainly wasn't enthusiastic about the subject, leading to rather intense disappointment and upset from his family. Despite this, he kept on at it doggedly, even with his lecturers advising him to switch courses, just because he knew his dad would never forgive him if he did switch.
It wasn't all doom and gloom though. While at university, he did manage to make some friends and got the chance to indulge his more geeky hobbies. He was introduced to tabletop roleplaying (Demons and Darkness) and even to cosplay and conventions (He says that he'd cosplayed Aquaman only because his girlfriend at the time really liked him, but it's fairly obvious from his reaction to possibly getting D&D costumes, that he was at least as enthusiastic as she was). He also spent a lot of time hanging around at the student radio station, learning how to use the equipment to broadcast, something that he enjoyed much more than his degree.
That last Christmas before the apocalypse was very uncomfortable for Sam, with praise heaped upon his sister while all he got was disappointment. Understandably, this made him feel rather jealous of his sister who was top of the class in her law degree and enjoying every minute of it.
The Grey Plague hit in November (from one of the radio segments with Father Michael) of his fourth year of university while he was visiting home for the weekend. It seemed like nothing at first; likened to Swine Flu or SARS, with authorities convinced that they could contain and cure it. Of course, this didn't quite work out when the dead began to revive, thoroughly destroying any quarantine procedures and spreading the plague further. Sam stayed at home instead of going back to university as the plague worsened, unable to contact his sister by phone or email. And then the inevitable happened; Sam's parents became infected and turned and Sam was forced to kill them in his own house.
(From this point on is mostly educated guesses as little is said about how Sam arrived in Abel or the early days)
By this point, civilisation was falling apart; people fleeing cities in terror, turning on other people, killing anyone displaying event a hint of a cough or a sniffle. Misleading advice was everywhere. And Sam was alone. He armed himself with an axe and was forced to scavenge to survive, avoiding zombies and holing up wherever seemed safe, no particular aim except surviving.
Sam managed to survive for at least a few weeks until he was picked up by Major de Santa and her military crew who were retreating northwards to the military base. She took him in and transported him to a farm outside of the town, which would later become Abel Township. It's there that the survivors holed up in a bunker for around three weeks, fighting off the hordes of the undead.
Even once the initial assault was over, there was a lot of work to do, building walls and defences that could stand up to further zombie attacks. Sam got a lot of use out of that axe. With all of the military personnel needed for defence, that left Sam as the only civilian with any real experience of radio and so he got shoehorned into the position of chief operator, in charge of guiding runners around the countryside in search of vital supplies.
It's a job with a high rate of fatalities and Sam oversees most of them. Pre-game, he's lost 3 Runner 5s, 1 Runner 3, 2 Runner 4s, at least 1 Runner 7, and from Esteban's comments asking how many Runners Sam has lost compared to Nadia's 3, we can probably assume that there have been a fair few more, so by the time of the game starting, he has seen a lot of people die, and taken out a fair few zoms himself.
(Back to canon from here)
One runner, Alice Dempsey, Runner 5, particularly stood out though. Ex-military, having moved into a lucractive private sector job, Alice was tough and charismatic and Sam was instantly smitten. He says that they had a 'thing' and is obviously fairly invested in her, although one gets the impression that it was more of a 1-sided thing on Sam's part, with Alice just not rebuffing his infatuation, rather than reciprocating. They got on well enough whatever their relationship, with Alice teaching him how to use a sidearm.
Sometime shortly before the main storyline, Sam sent Alice on a mission to the hospital in town where she went missing, presumed dead.
Abel Township was contacted by a military helicopter bringing in supplies from the military base up north. Sam took the call, giving them the all clear to land, just in time to see the helicopter be shot down by a rocket launcher. Despite the shock and panic, Sam managed to contact the survivor of the crash (Runner 5, the player character) and give them directions to escape the horde of zombies approaching, giving them the title Runner 5 in the process. He successfully guided them back to Abel, even with a detour through the hospital where Alice had died. Just before Runner 5 reached the gates however, a fast zombie appeared, one that had once been Alice, and Sam had to watch as she was shot down by the snipers at the gates.
Sam did not take this well. While he attempted to work through the grief, involving himself with training the new Runner 5, his behaviour became more and more erratic until he put both himself and 5 in danger, having them running over and over the spot where Alice had died. Following this incident, he ended up having a PTSD triggered breakdown and was confined to the hospital by Maxine to rest and recover. We know that he at least was suffering from flashbacks.
Life continued pretty much as normal, or as normal as it can get in the zombie apocalypse with many missions run. It was during one of these that Runner 5 was ambushed and trapped outside overnight, when the zombies were more active. Not knowing whether 5 was living, dead or undead, Sam stayed up all night broadcasting, talking to Runner 5, begging them to come home.
Shortly after this, Sam guided Runner 5 on a mission to pick up medical equipment. A routine mission seemingly, except when Runner 5 picked up a box intended for Maxine Meyers, Sam's best friend and Abel's resident doctor. The box contained records from scientists who had been working on the virus, including Maxine's girlfriend, Paula.
It proved to be vital information, and Sam helped with further missions, giving Maxine time to listen to the CD Paula had left and for the two of them to recover files about Patient Zero from a secret military location. The plot thickened when Runner 5 only narrowly escaped armed men who destroyed the facility.
Following this, Sam controlled a mission to gain more information about Van Ark and the events leading up to the Grey Plague, sending out Runner 5, Runner 8 and Maxine to gather information, despite knowing that the Major would not have let the Doctor out of the compound. During these missions, they met with Professor Van Ark, who seemed to have been involved in the research which led to the plague. Unfortunately he was bitten, leaving them only with a mention of Jeffro Complex, a research facility still working on a cure.
En route to Jeffro, they encountered a man called Ephraim who agreed to help them get inside, and also warned them that New Canton had sent a raiding party, 130 people, to assault the complex. While Sam told his runners to return home, Maxine and Runner 8 refused, heading on to the complex.
After entering the complex, they realised that they'd been betrayed, and that Van Ark had not actually died or turned, and had led them into a trap, intending to capture them. Thanks to Runner 8, they managed to escape in the confusion, but not before hearing Paula's voice, although it turned out to be a recording, and seeing some of the inside of the facility, people kept in strange tanks and Van Ark's healed zombie bite.
After escaping, they were approached by Archie, New Canton's Runner 20 who passed on vital information, including that Paula was alive and working with Van Ark, albeit, unwillingly, as he has the only method to keep her from becoming a zombie.
All of this had to be put on hold however. A chance encounter with Lem, a New Canton Runner who had been bitten, left them with a headset to listen in on New Canton's transmissions. Through this, they learnt that New Canton was planning a raid on Abel Township.
The day of the raid left Sam definitely jittery, sending his runners out, not against zombies, but against humans. They used Lem's headset to keep up with what was going on, finding out about the heavily armed New Canton runners heading for them, as well as deceiving the New Canton Operator into believing that Lem was still alive.
Just as things seemed to be getting heated, the New Canton runners were ordered back to their settlement. Sam celebrated, but it was a premature one, when the news came in that a swarm of over 300 zombies, the dead from another settlement, was heading towards Abel.
Sam went a little to pieces for a few moments, with Runner 7 organising the others to pick off the zombies into smaller groups. Over the radios, Sam had to listen as Runner 6 was bitten and killed by child zombies, while the others ran for their lives.
Worse was to come when several zombies, moving far too purposefully for the shambling undead, produced a rocket launcher which they fired at Abel.
(this next part isn't covered in-game as Runner 5 is out in the wilds at this point, not in base)
This understandably left the base in chaos, with every hand available called up to defend Abel against the zombies, with groups sent off in different directions to hide and to guide the zombies away (we know that Jack and Runner 12, for example, ended up in woodlands a few kilometers from Abel following the attack, for example). Things would have gone worse had Major de Santa not shown up soon after with military backup.
The Major managed to broker an alliance with New Canton, allowing the population of Abel to move there while they tried to rebuild and organising several joint missions of great import. Being essential personnel, Sam spent most of his time at Abel Township, despite it still being mainly ruined.
(And this is where Season 2 begins)
One of these was a deception mission to capture several of Van Ark's fast zombies for study, using Runner 5 as bait. Sam worked with Nadia, New Canton's operator, faking fear and worry and mistrust to throw Van Ark off as to their true intent. While the mission went off without a hitch, Sam did accidentally spill that it had been Runner 5 pretending to be Lem during the attack, earning a cold reaction from Nadia.
Over the course of several missions, an alliance was brokered with New Canton and spirits were buoyed by the discovery that zombies reacted to sound (dog whistles) and by the creation of a chemical which slowed down fast zombies, greatly increasing Runners' ability to evade them. They were also constantly sending out Runners on missions to try to recover people that had been lost during the attack.
Nadia deliberately sent Runner 5 into hostile territory with the intention of getting them killed in revenge for Lem's death. Sam intervened at the last moment, fiercely protective of his runner as he told Nadia off for her actions, accusing her of being a hypocrite, because she would have done exactly the same in Abel's position. Following that, he called Runner 5 back to Abel which was still being rebuilt, promising to find them a bed somewhere.
Personality: First things first, Sam is generally rather cheerful, friendly and outgoing. He is generally ready with some kind of joke (not necessarily a good joke) or anecdote, even in the most dire of situations. He likes to keep people's spirits up, for example, talking through the night with Runner 5 and the sometimes excessive praise that he heaps upon his runners. This is also shown in that he seems to be rather popular around Abel Township. When he has his breakdown in the 5K trainer, quite a few of the people in the base show concern for him and display a desire to protect him, offering to find him extra rations (nice things) to cheer him up, while Runner 8 has a desire to protect him from the more cut-throat parts of life post-apocalypse, cutting her radio signal so that Sam won't hear if she has to kill Runner 5 if they turn out to be lying about who they are. Even Runner 10, normally a little awkward around Sam's hero worship, seems to miss his presence and enthusiasm. Still, there is an edge to his cheer that seems to be more a defence mechanism than anything else, a kind of 'if I don't laugh I'll cry and never stop'.
He is incredibly loyal and devoted to the people who show him loyalty, pushing himself to the limit to help them, even to his own detriment. This is demonstrated when he stays up through the night talking to Runner 5, begging them to come home, despite not knowing whether they are even alive anymore or when he keeps everyone out of the comms room so that Maxine can listen to a last recording from her girlfriend. While he might not be good at standing up for himself, his loyalty definitely makes him fierce when it comes to protecting the people he cares about. When Nadia attempts to get Runner 5 killed by sending them into hostile territory, Sam reacts with utter rage, giving her a rather brutal verbal smackdown before defying orders and getting Runner 5 home. He's also fairly unforgiving of people who have hurt his Runners in the past. In S2M19, he is quite happy for Runner 5 and Runner 8 to leave Ephraim (who had betrayed them previously) to be killed, showing no remorse or mercy even when it's pointed out to him.
The flip side of this is that his loyalty can blind him to certain things and he does tend to blindly trust people who have helped him, for example, his refusal to question the motives of Major de Santa and Janine despite being given very good reasons to do so. It can also push him to make unhealthy decisions and push himself too far; after Alice, the previous Runner 5 is killed, he runs himself ragged, putting himself into danger to retrieve her wallet and then suffers a PTSD related breakdown. He also takes any deaths of his people hard, fully blaming himself for each and every one.
While Sam definitely does try to cling to the values of the old world, even saying that he thinks they have to look back to see what they need to move towards, he has still developed a certain amount of pragmatism that might seem insensitive to anyone from the old world, or he has at least become desensitised to some of the darker aspects of life. He has no qualms about having Runner 5 use Lem's headset to fool the New Canton Runners, and when Nadia brings this up later, angry that they'd made her believe that Lem was alive, he angrily insists that she would have done the same thing to survive. He also shows reluctance to have Runner 5 assist Lem in escaping, and his main reaction to the man's inevitable death is not sadness or horror, but appreciation of his not returning to a settlement to infect others, and feeling glad that they now have an extra piece of technology. Similarly his main reaction to Janine talking about sparking a civil war in New Canton is not horror at the possible destruction of a settlement, but concern that she's just broadcast it over the radio and for how it will affect Abel.
Probably mainly due to his father's treatment of him, Sam is near pathologically insecure and eager to please. In Season 1, Mission 1, pretty much the first thing he says to you is 'I'm just a radio operator' followed a little later by 'Sorry, I don't do well under massive pressure', both things which are later shown to be false. He is the main communications operator for Abel, running the most important, dangerous and secret missions (I doubt they would have given the job of coordinating multiple Runners in the field to fend off an attack by another settlement and a massive zombie horde if they had anyone more competent around, as is shown in Season 1, Missions 21+22), and while he sometimes fumbles when under massive pressure, for example, being reluctant to say just how many zoms are on your tail, he shows himself quite capable of working through pressure on multiple occasions, as in the missions mentioned above, as well as the Race missions and recently, Missions 13, 14 and 15 of Season 2. This suggests to me that he has a generally low opinion of his abilities, due to repeatedly being told that he isn't good enough, and this has only been compounded by the high number of runner deaths and his inability to 'normalise' death. While a professional soldier might be able to view the deaths as sad but necessary and simply a part of their lives, Sam still innocently views every death as a tragedy and a failing of his own, rather than a part of the world they inhabit.
It's also because of this that he takes every single death that happens on his watch as his fault, his responsibility, and blames himself for every single one, even when it isn't his fault or there was nothing he could do, for example in Season 2, Mission 16 when Simon says that it's Sam's fault that Archie died, he doesn't argue, doesn't fight it, even though there was little he could do. He even agrees with Simon despite Nadia's protests.
He compensates for this by being very eager to please, especially people in a position of authority. When Major de Santa watches over a mission, Sam acts very formally, trying to impress her with his maturity and competence. This is probably because she is the most high ranking person in Abel, and Sam has said on several occasions that he owes her his life. Another example of this is in S1 Mission 14, where Sam attempts to hide his interest and prior experience in geeky things such as roleplaying games from Maxine, at least until he is 100% sure that she isn't going to laugh at him for it. This also presents itself in how dedicated he is to his job. He has truly taken the idea that only people who pull their weight get to stay to heart. He will push himself incredibly hard for his job, for example, broadcasting through the night to Runner 5, or trying to push aside his grief over Alice. In the 5K trainer (Week 4, Workout 1), he is actually frustrated that he has only been allowed back to working half time while he is still recovering from a PTSD-triggered mental breakdown.
His dedication to his job has actually become a large part of his identity. Despite the absence of real social classes or groups anymore, the position of Chief Operator gives him the first real social clout that he's ever had. Rather than being a kid, and a geeky, socially awkward one at that, he has one of the most important positions in Abel, one which virtually puts him in charge of the Runners (S2 Side Mission 3 shows that he is able to dispatch Runners at his own discretion) and even gives him leeway to answer back to, tease and argue with Janine de Luca, the de facto head of Abel Township when Major de Santa isn't around. He also very much treats the main comms desk as his own space. This seems rather telling for a person with such chronic insecurity.
Because of the situation, Sam seems to cling to any kind of hope that presents itself, no matter how ridiculous it might seem in hindsight. It's strongly suggested that he believed in the anti-zombie charms and tattoos at the start of the outbreak, and he possibly even has a tattoo himself. He placed similar trust into Alice, talking about how fast she could run. And he definitely sees Runner 10 as this, idolising him and raising him to the position of hero in his mind for his ridiculously high zombie kill count (over 400 zoms by the time he dies). He develops a similar feeling for Runner 5 (the player character) and to a lesser extent, to Lem, for his heroic actions and general awesomeness (Nobel Prize Winner, Olympic medallist, self made millionaire philanthropist). Because Sam needs something to believe in, some kind of hero and it breaks him a little each time one falls.
Strengths
Physical: While Sam is not overflowing with aggressive machismo, he is a survivor of the zombies apocalypse and has killed his fair share of zoms (including his parents). He's relatively proficient with an axe as his chosen weapon and once bludgeoned a zombie to death with the handle of it. It's made a relatively big deal of when his axe breaks (everyone remembers the day) and he talks about it having been his trusted companion since the start of the apocalypse, which suggests that he's kept up with practising using it. He states in S1M9 that he might have to shoot Runner 5 in the head if they've become a zom and in the 5K trainer, we learn that Alice had trained him to use a sidearm. We can thus assume that he is relatively proficient with a gun, especially since he is essential base personnel.
I imagine that he's in decent cardiovascular shape even considering he spends most of his time inside the township, since being able to run is a survival skill now, and he is allowed outside the gates for short missions on at least 2 occasions, managing to keep up with Runner 5 during training on a few occasions.
While he probably wasn't out in the wilds as long as some, considering he seems to have been from the local area and at Abel for a long time, it's likely that he is relatively proficient in survival skills, knowing how and where to scavenge food, how to find the best shelter from the zoms and protect himself. I have trouble imagining the people at Abel not training their people in survival skills.
Mental: Sam is fairly intelligent and knowledgeable with a good memory. His job as Abel's chief communications operator requires him to have a good memory for the area surrounding Abel for quite a distance and where supplies can be found. We see that he is able to rapidly estimate how large several groups of zombies are while they're on the move and while giving directions, as well as estimating their speed. He coordinates several runners in the field at once, guiding them in different directions, suggesting that he is fairly quick thinking and adaptable. This also shows in several instances where he has to rapidly change plans in the face of unexpected zombie incidents. He has definitely developed some talent for tactical thinking, for example in S2 M18 where he comes up with a plan for avoiding bullets that is praised by Major de Santa.
Although he says that he was failing his degree in engineering (partly at least because he had no interest in the subject), we can also guess that he was very good academically. He points out that his dad pushed him to do well, throwing a fit when Sam didn't excel in French despite Sam's dad not having any interest in French. He completed his A-levels with good grades to be able to get into a university engineering degree (which generally require A grades in maths and physics, plus a third A level, most likely chemistry, perhaps more since his dad was kind of pushy).
He seems to have a good working knowledge of radio equipment and electronics, certainly enough to keep the communications equipment working and know how to jury rig a connection to rofflenet, although the majority of this has been learnt on the job and from his time hanging around the student radio station at university before the apocalypse.
He also knows quite a bit of sensitive information about Abel Township itself, such as it's strengths, weapons capabilities, manpower etc. all things that he has to be familiar with to keep the Runners informed. He's also the controller for several top secret missions (such as Maxine and Runner 5's excursion to see Van Ark, and Janine's plans for a civil war in New Canton) which suggests that he has access to some rather sensitive information.
Emotional: Sam has survived the zombie apocalypse and come out the other side relatively sane. This suggests that he has a certain strength of will to not just give up entirely, even though he has considered it at points (he does mention that he sometimes thinks the people who don't have the build the future are the lucky ones and that the people who turn into zoms might be better off). He's also tough enough to be able to keep going despite seeing friends killed or turned, sometimes because he's sent them to places.
He's got an optimistic outlook for the most part, able to see the good in most situations, even after the end of the world, for example, he says that he sometimes wakes up and feels grateful for everything, because now he's getting to do the kind of job that had been his dream; working on the radio.
His loyalty and cheerful attitude have definitely worked to his advantage, earning him loyalty and a protective attitude from the people at Abel (seriously, they all fret enormously about him when he's in the hospital). In many ways he's sort of Abel Township's mascot. He definitely seems to earn a certain fondness from all of the Runners under his command, who work hard to keep him upbeat (Runner 7 rebukes Jody for snapping at him in S1M21, stating that he's doing his job to keep them safe, just as the Runners are doing theirs). He also has the very first song on Jack and Eugene's Radio Abel dedicated to him so we know it isn't just the Runners who he's managed to make friends with.
Weaknesses ( Provide canon examples and include special powers/abilities as necessary. You may combine sections as needed, but remember to always be thorough.)
Physical: There are good reasons why Sam is not a Runner, one of the biggest being his trouble with lefts and rights and geography in general (without a sat nav). While he can give good directions, there's a good chance that he'd probably run the wrong way into a horde of zoms if he was out in the wilds. He's also not the strongest person physically. On a mission to check the outside walls of Abel, he was attacked by a zom and had the bludgeon it many many times with his axe handle to kill it, unable to give a hard enough blow to take it out. Considering the same incident, he also says that he pulled the axe out the wrong way, suggesting that he lacks a certain amount of physical coordination. This is also suggested in S2 Side Mission 8, his enthusiastic dancing actually knocks things over in the comms shack.
While he is probably in reasonable shape, simply to be able to survive, he probably doesn't have the stamina or speed to run for long distances or outrun anything more than shamblers. He does spend much of his life in a tin shack rather than out doing physical work.
Mental: Sam genuinely has no 'real world' experience as an adult. Or at least, not in any kind of normal environment. He has gone straight from university, still being viewed and treated as a child by his parents and the world at large, with no real responsibilities, to being a survivor of the apocalypse and responsible for people's lives and the well-being of the settlement. He's still childish in the way he relates to people in many ways, for example, how he slips between treating Maxine as a friend, a mentor and a surrogate mother, and is unprepared for the horrors ahead. He's also not had much time to develop adult coping mechanisms to help him deal with stressful situations, both for himself and others (his attempts to help Maxine deal with the knowledge about Paula are painfully awkward).
Sam also displays many of the psychological quirks of people who have been through trauma and societal collapse, such as paranoia and hyper-vigilance, fight-or-flight reflexes brought to the fore and a tendency to dwell on the past and things that have been lost.
Emotional: Sam is canonically suffering from a certain amount of PTSD. This manifests particularly in the 5K trainer with obsessive behaviour that puts both himself and other people at risk (running over and over the same stretch of land searching for the old Runner 5's wallet and then going off alone and unarmed). This is followed by him spending about a week in the infirmary resting because he's been suffering from flashbacks, and probably insomnia and other symptoms.
'At once trusting and untrusting' is how the Runner's guide characterises the survivors. Sam has been made very aware of how much he needs other people to survive and that if he doesn't trust people, he might as well not survive, but he has also had it brought home time and time again that trusting in things, in people, leads to pain. He's seen people die, even people he trusted to survive (such as Runner 10), and has seen what seemed like such a solid and stable and permanent world crumble into chaos.
Related to this, he has developed a certain amount of an 'us vs them' mentality regarding other settlements, most notably New Canton who are the biggest source of competition in the area. He trusts his people with his life, and will give his life for them, but is wary about those from other settlements, reluctant to offer even life-saving help to anyone else. It's a sad fact, but people from other settlements are threats and competition for limited resources. Even when working with New Canton, he is suspicious of their motives and unhappy about working with them.
SAMPLES (ALL SAMPLES MUST BE SET IN THE LUCETIVERSE)
First Person:
Trainingwings Thread here
Third Person:
It was the food shop that got him in the end.
Oh sure, he knew in his head that things were different here. Jack and Eugene had told him and there were just... some things were easy to tell. People smiled more and didn't check over their shoulders in case the undead hordes were about to break through the fences (rocket launchers strongly discouraged). No fences and barbed wire for that matter. Just little things that you didn't really notice until they were gone and then they kind of hit you in the face.
It's not like he hadn't seen the inside of the cupboards in the house either (he was fairly sure that Eugene had decided that he needed feeding up), but it was one thing to see stacks of tins and bottled water, familiar things, and quite another to see, well, this.
It wasn't even a big shop, not by pre-apocalypse standards, barely bigger than the local Tesco down the road from where he'd lived but when he stepped through the door he just had to stop and stare for a moment. A really long moment.
He hadn't stepped into a shop in... god, months, not since the early days of the plague and even then, the shop had been a ransacked mess of smashed glass as people panicked. Seeing one in pristine condition was a little overwhelming.
Seeing one full of actual food was just... He was pretty sure you weren't supposed to shake just from looking at food, but oh my god, they had fruit! Not the tinned stuff in juice and syrup which had become a rare treat, but actual real fresh fruit. Apples and bananas and grapes all piled up and there for the taking and Sam was pretty sure that his mouth started to water just looking at them.
Fruit, man. Fruit.
And to think that he'd been annoyed at mum getting on at him to eat more things that weren't pizza or take away back Before.
But that wasn't it even, even though it was more than he'd ever dreamed of seeing again, because really, even if the zoms vanished overnight, importing grapes from halfway round the world was probably not gonna be a priority. Oh no, the icing on the cake (and there was another thing they had, actual cake with chocolate and icing and stuff), was packed in the ice box and Sam could only laugh when he saw it, a thick, strangled sound that changed into gulping, helpless sobs as the last few days caught up with him all at once and all he could remember was Five and that ridiculous, hellish night when he'd woken Janine up to ask about Ice Cream Roll.
Name: Zalia
Journal Username: zalia
E-mail: zaliachimera [@] gmail.com
AIM/PLURK: Plurk – zaliachimera, AIM - ZaliaChimera
Current Characters at Luceti: Clint Barton/Hawkeye – MCU -
asthehawkfliesMax Woodville – Original -
abjurerCHARACTER
Name: Sam Yao
Canon: Zombies, Run!
Gender: Male
Age: 22 (no canon age is given but he says that at the start of the apocalypse, he was in his 4th year of university. He seems the type to go straight from high school which would put him at about 21 at the start of the outbreak and at least several months have passed since then)
Wing Color: Brown, black and grey, like a British sparrow - http://www.lifessense.com/wp/wp-content/photos/male-house-sparrow-5.jpg
Canon Point: Shortly after Season 2, Mission 4, once Runner 5 has returned to Abel Township after the attempt on their life. I'm also choosing to believe that this is before the first Side mission where Jack is found.
History:
While Sam has more backstory than most characters in Zombies, Run! I've still had to speculate on parts of his history which I've incdicated)
The Runner's Guide put out by the creators is a good guide to the Grey Plague and the days following the outbreak.
Sam was born and raised in England, the eldest child and only son of a Chinese father and English mother, and with one younger sister who he was very fond of. It's probable that he grew up not too far from the area that would become Abel Township (he seems to be very familiar with the surrounding area, including knowing a specific pizza place and the locations of multiple comic and hobby shops), if not in the town itself, then in one of the surrounding villages.
Although his family were generally loving and took good care of him, his relationship with his father was never the best. He was pushed to excel in academics from a young age, with his father making his disappointment known whenever Sam didn't live up to expectations (Sam states that his dad got so angry when Sam didn't get good grades in French, telling Sam that he had dishonoured his family, and that was a subject his dad didn't even care about). While Sam put in a lot of work, it was likely to the detriment of his social life and led to a huge amount of insecurity and need for approval. With so much pressure to succeed and likely little time to spend with friends, Sam turned to the internet and other solitary 'geeky' activities instead. He's canonically shown to be into comics (DC and Marvel), and has a working knowledge of internet lingo (calling Runner 10 a BAMF).
He lived a relatively normal life for the most part, managing to keep up his grades a reasonable amount. It's during high school that he developed an interest in the radio, expressing an interest in becoming a DJ to his parents. This met with fierce disapproval from his father who insisted on a more academic career and so Sam ended up applying for an engineering degree. He managed to get good enough grades to get into university and when the time came, went off to college.
It turned out that he was awful at engineering. He had no interest in the subject, and while he tried very hard, he just could not deal with the subject, barely scraping by each year. While he mostly managed to hide his poor grades from his father, it was obvious that he wasn't doing very well and certainly wasn't enthusiastic about the subject, leading to rather intense disappointment and upset from his family. Despite this, he kept on at it doggedly, even with his lecturers advising him to switch courses, just because he knew his dad would never forgive him if he did switch.
It wasn't all doom and gloom though. While at university, he did manage to make some friends and got the chance to indulge his more geeky hobbies. He was introduced to tabletop roleplaying (Demons and Darkness) and even to cosplay and conventions (He says that he'd cosplayed Aquaman only because his girlfriend at the time really liked him, but it's fairly obvious from his reaction to possibly getting D&D costumes, that he was at least as enthusiastic as she was). He also spent a lot of time hanging around at the student radio station, learning how to use the equipment to broadcast, something that he enjoyed much more than his degree.
That last Christmas before the apocalypse was very uncomfortable for Sam, with praise heaped upon his sister while all he got was disappointment. Understandably, this made him feel rather jealous of his sister who was top of the class in her law degree and enjoying every minute of it.
The Grey Plague hit in November (from one of the radio segments with Father Michael) of his fourth year of university while he was visiting home for the weekend. It seemed like nothing at first; likened to Swine Flu or SARS, with authorities convinced that they could contain and cure it. Of course, this didn't quite work out when the dead began to revive, thoroughly destroying any quarantine procedures and spreading the plague further. Sam stayed at home instead of going back to university as the plague worsened, unable to contact his sister by phone or email. And then the inevitable happened; Sam's parents became infected and turned and Sam was forced to kill them in his own house.
(From this point on is mostly educated guesses as little is said about how Sam arrived in Abel or the early days)
By this point, civilisation was falling apart; people fleeing cities in terror, turning on other people, killing anyone displaying event a hint of a cough or a sniffle. Misleading advice was everywhere. And Sam was alone. He armed himself with an axe and was forced to scavenge to survive, avoiding zombies and holing up wherever seemed safe, no particular aim except surviving.
Sam managed to survive for at least a few weeks until he was picked up by Major de Santa and her military crew who were retreating northwards to the military base. She took him in and transported him to a farm outside of the town, which would later become Abel Township. It's there that the survivors holed up in a bunker for around three weeks, fighting off the hordes of the undead.
Even once the initial assault was over, there was a lot of work to do, building walls and defences that could stand up to further zombie attacks. Sam got a lot of use out of that axe. With all of the military personnel needed for defence, that left Sam as the only civilian with any real experience of radio and so he got shoehorned into the position of chief operator, in charge of guiding runners around the countryside in search of vital supplies.
It's a job with a high rate of fatalities and Sam oversees most of them. Pre-game, he's lost 3 Runner 5s, 1 Runner 3, 2 Runner 4s, at least 1 Runner 7, and from Esteban's comments asking how many Runners Sam has lost compared to Nadia's 3, we can probably assume that there have been a fair few more, so by the time of the game starting, he has seen a lot of people die, and taken out a fair few zoms himself.
(Back to canon from here)
One runner, Alice Dempsey, Runner 5, particularly stood out though. Ex-military, having moved into a lucractive private sector job, Alice was tough and charismatic and Sam was instantly smitten. He says that they had a 'thing' and is obviously fairly invested in her, although one gets the impression that it was more of a 1-sided thing on Sam's part, with Alice just not rebuffing his infatuation, rather than reciprocating. They got on well enough whatever their relationship, with Alice teaching him how to use a sidearm.
Sometime shortly before the main storyline, Sam sent Alice on a mission to the hospital in town where she went missing, presumed dead.
Abel Township was contacted by a military helicopter bringing in supplies from the military base up north. Sam took the call, giving them the all clear to land, just in time to see the helicopter be shot down by a rocket launcher. Despite the shock and panic, Sam managed to contact the survivor of the crash (Runner 5, the player character) and give them directions to escape the horde of zombies approaching, giving them the title Runner 5 in the process. He successfully guided them back to Abel, even with a detour through the hospital where Alice had died. Just before Runner 5 reached the gates however, a fast zombie appeared, one that had once been Alice, and Sam had to watch as she was shot down by the snipers at the gates.
Sam did not take this well. While he attempted to work through the grief, involving himself with training the new Runner 5, his behaviour became more and more erratic until he put both himself and 5 in danger, having them running over and over the spot where Alice had died. Following this incident, he ended up having a PTSD triggered breakdown and was confined to the hospital by Maxine to rest and recover. We know that he at least was suffering from flashbacks.
Life continued pretty much as normal, or as normal as it can get in the zombie apocalypse with many missions run. It was during one of these that Runner 5 was ambushed and trapped outside overnight, when the zombies were more active. Not knowing whether 5 was living, dead or undead, Sam stayed up all night broadcasting, talking to Runner 5, begging them to come home.
Shortly after this, Sam guided Runner 5 on a mission to pick up medical equipment. A routine mission seemingly, except when Runner 5 picked up a box intended for Maxine Meyers, Sam's best friend and Abel's resident doctor. The box contained records from scientists who had been working on the virus, including Maxine's girlfriend, Paula.
It proved to be vital information, and Sam helped with further missions, giving Maxine time to listen to the CD Paula had left and for the two of them to recover files about Patient Zero from a secret military location. The plot thickened when Runner 5 only narrowly escaped armed men who destroyed the facility.
Following this, Sam controlled a mission to gain more information about Van Ark and the events leading up to the Grey Plague, sending out Runner 5, Runner 8 and Maxine to gather information, despite knowing that the Major would not have let the Doctor out of the compound. During these missions, they met with Professor Van Ark, who seemed to have been involved in the research which led to the plague. Unfortunately he was bitten, leaving them only with a mention of Jeffro Complex, a research facility still working on a cure.
En route to Jeffro, they encountered a man called Ephraim who agreed to help them get inside, and also warned them that New Canton had sent a raiding party, 130 people, to assault the complex. While Sam told his runners to return home, Maxine and Runner 8 refused, heading on to the complex.
After entering the complex, they realised that they'd been betrayed, and that Van Ark had not actually died or turned, and had led them into a trap, intending to capture them. Thanks to Runner 8, they managed to escape in the confusion, but not before hearing Paula's voice, although it turned out to be a recording, and seeing some of the inside of the facility, people kept in strange tanks and Van Ark's healed zombie bite.
After escaping, they were approached by Archie, New Canton's Runner 20 who passed on vital information, including that Paula was alive and working with Van Ark, albeit, unwillingly, as he has the only method to keep her from becoming a zombie.
All of this had to be put on hold however. A chance encounter with Lem, a New Canton Runner who had been bitten, left them with a headset to listen in on New Canton's transmissions. Through this, they learnt that New Canton was planning a raid on Abel Township.
The day of the raid left Sam definitely jittery, sending his runners out, not against zombies, but against humans. They used Lem's headset to keep up with what was going on, finding out about the heavily armed New Canton runners heading for them, as well as deceiving the New Canton Operator into believing that Lem was still alive.
Just as things seemed to be getting heated, the New Canton runners were ordered back to their settlement. Sam celebrated, but it was a premature one, when the news came in that a swarm of over 300 zombies, the dead from another settlement, was heading towards Abel.
Sam went a little to pieces for a few moments, with Runner 7 organising the others to pick off the zombies into smaller groups. Over the radios, Sam had to listen as Runner 6 was bitten and killed by child zombies, while the others ran for their lives.
Worse was to come when several zombies, moving far too purposefully for the shambling undead, produced a rocket launcher which they fired at Abel.
(this next part isn't covered in-game as Runner 5 is out in the wilds at this point, not in base)
This understandably left the base in chaos, with every hand available called up to defend Abel against the zombies, with groups sent off in different directions to hide and to guide the zombies away (we know that Jack and Runner 12, for example, ended up in woodlands a few kilometers from Abel following the attack, for example). Things would have gone worse had Major de Santa not shown up soon after with military backup.
The Major managed to broker an alliance with New Canton, allowing the population of Abel to move there while they tried to rebuild and organising several joint missions of great import. Being essential personnel, Sam spent most of his time at Abel Township, despite it still being mainly ruined.
(And this is where Season 2 begins)
One of these was a deception mission to capture several of Van Ark's fast zombies for study, using Runner 5 as bait. Sam worked with Nadia, New Canton's operator, faking fear and worry and mistrust to throw Van Ark off as to their true intent. While the mission went off without a hitch, Sam did accidentally spill that it had been Runner 5 pretending to be Lem during the attack, earning a cold reaction from Nadia.
Over the course of several missions, an alliance was brokered with New Canton and spirits were buoyed by the discovery that zombies reacted to sound (dog whistles) and by the creation of a chemical which slowed down fast zombies, greatly increasing Runners' ability to evade them. They were also constantly sending out Runners on missions to try to recover people that had been lost during the attack.
Nadia deliberately sent Runner 5 into hostile territory with the intention of getting them killed in revenge for Lem's death. Sam intervened at the last moment, fiercely protective of his runner as he told Nadia off for her actions, accusing her of being a hypocrite, because she would have done exactly the same in Abel's position. Following that, he called Runner 5 back to Abel which was still being rebuilt, promising to find them a bed somewhere.
Personality: First things first, Sam is generally rather cheerful, friendly and outgoing. He is generally ready with some kind of joke (not necessarily a good joke) or anecdote, even in the most dire of situations. He likes to keep people's spirits up, for example, talking through the night with Runner 5 and the sometimes excessive praise that he heaps upon his runners. This is also shown in that he seems to be rather popular around Abel Township. When he has his breakdown in the 5K trainer, quite a few of the people in the base show concern for him and display a desire to protect him, offering to find him extra rations (nice things) to cheer him up, while Runner 8 has a desire to protect him from the more cut-throat parts of life post-apocalypse, cutting her radio signal so that Sam won't hear if she has to kill Runner 5 if they turn out to be lying about who they are. Even Runner 10, normally a little awkward around Sam's hero worship, seems to miss his presence and enthusiasm. Still, there is an edge to his cheer that seems to be more a defence mechanism than anything else, a kind of 'if I don't laugh I'll cry and never stop'.
He is incredibly loyal and devoted to the people who show him loyalty, pushing himself to the limit to help them, even to his own detriment. This is demonstrated when he stays up through the night talking to Runner 5, begging them to come home, despite not knowing whether they are even alive anymore or when he keeps everyone out of the comms room so that Maxine can listen to a last recording from her girlfriend. While he might not be good at standing up for himself, his loyalty definitely makes him fierce when it comes to protecting the people he cares about. When Nadia attempts to get Runner 5 killed by sending them into hostile territory, Sam reacts with utter rage, giving her a rather brutal verbal smackdown before defying orders and getting Runner 5 home. He's also fairly unforgiving of people who have hurt his Runners in the past. In S2M19, he is quite happy for Runner 5 and Runner 8 to leave Ephraim (who had betrayed them previously) to be killed, showing no remorse or mercy even when it's pointed out to him.
The flip side of this is that his loyalty can blind him to certain things and he does tend to blindly trust people who have helped him, for example, his refusal to question the motives of Major de Santa and Janine despite being given very good reasons to do so. It can also push him to make unhealthy decisions and push himself too far; after Alice, the previous Runner 5 is killed, he runs himself ragged, putting himself into danger to retrieve her wallet and then suffers a PTSD related breakdown. He also takes any deaths of his people hard, fully blaming himself for each and every one.
While Sam definitely does try to cling to the values of the old world, even saying that he thinks they have to look back to see what they need to move towards, he has still developed a certain amount of pragmatism that might seem insensitive to anyone from the old world, or he has at least become desensitised to some of the darker aspects of life. He has no qualms about having Runner 5 use Lem's headset to fool the New Canton Runners, and when Nadia brings this up later, angry that they'd made her believe that Lem was alive, he angrily insists that she would have done the same thing to survive. He also shows reluctance to have Runner 5 assist Lem in escaping, and his main reaction to the man's inevitable death is not sadness or horror, but appreciation of his not returning to a settlement to infect others, and feeling glad that they now have an extra piece of technology. Similarly his main reaction to Janine talking about sparking a civil war in New Canton is not horror at the possible destruction of a settlement, but concern that she's just broadcast it over the radio and for how it will affect Abel.
Probably mainly due to his father's treatment of him, Sam is near pathologically insecure and eager to please. In Season 1, Mission 1, pretty much the first thing he says to you is 'I'm just a radio operator' followed a little later by 'Sorry, I don't do well under massive pressure', both things which are later shown to be false. He is the main communications operator for Abel, running the most important, dangerous and secret missions (I doubt they would have given the job of coordinating multiple Runners in the field to fend off an attack by another settlement and a massive zombie horde if they had anyone more competent around, as is shown in Season 1, Missions 21+22), and while he sometimes fumbles when under massive pressure, for example, being reluctant to say just how many zoms are on your tail, he shows himself quite capable of working through pressure on multiple occasions, as in the missions mentioned above, as well as the Race missions and recently, Missions 13, 14 and 15 of Season 2. This suggests to me that he has a generally low opinion of his abilities, due to repeatedly being told that he isn't good enough, and this has only been compounded by the high number of runner deaths and his inability to 'normalise' death. While a professional soldier might be able to view the deaths as sad but necessary and simply a part of their lives, Sam still innocently views every death as a tragedy and a failing of his own, rather than a part of the world they inhabit.
It's also because of this that he takes every single death that happens on his watch as his fault, his responsibility, and blames himself for every single one, even when it isn't his fault or there was nothing he could do, for example in Season 2, Mission 16 when Simon says that it's Sam's fault that Archie died, he doesn't argue, doesn't fight it, even though there was little he could do. He even agrees with Simon despite Nadia's protests.
He compensates for this by being very eager to please, especially people in a position of authority. When Major de Santa watches over a mission, Sam acts very formally, trying to impress her with his maturity and competence. This is probably because she is the most high ranking person in Abel, and Sam has said on several occasions that he owes her his life. Another example of this is in S1 Mission 14, where Sam attempts to hide his interest and prior experience in geeky things such as roleplaying games from Maxine, at least until he is 100% sure that she isn't going to laugh at him for it. This also presents itself in how dedicated he is to his job. He has truly taken the idea that only people who pull their weight get to stay to heart. He will push himself incredibly hard for his job, for example, broadcasting through the night to Runner 5, or trying to push aside his grief over Alice. In the 5K trainer (Week 4, Workout 1), he is actually frustrated that he has only been allowed back to working half time while he is still recovering from a PTSD-triggered mental breakdown.
His dedication to his job has actually become a large part of his identity. Despite the absence of real social classes or groups anymore, the position of Chief Operator gives him the first real social clout that he's ever had. Rather than being a kid, and a geeky, socially awkward one at that, he has one of the most important positions in Abel, one which virtually puts him in charge of the Runners (S2 Side Mission 3 shows that he is able to dispatch Runners at his own discretion) and even gives him leeway to answer back to, tease and argue with Janine de Luca, the de facto head of Abel Township when Major de Santa isn't around. He also very much treats the main comms desk as his own space. This seems rather telling for a person with such chronic insecurity.
Because of the situation, Sam seems to cling to any kind of hope that presents itself, no matter how ridiculous it might seem in hindsight. It's strongly suggested that he believed in the anti-zombie charms and tattoos at the start of the outbreak, and he possibly even has a tattoo himself. He placed similar trust into Alice, talking about how fast she could run. And he definitely sees Runner 10 as this, idolising him and raising him to the position of hero in his mind for his ridiculously high zombie kill count (over 400 zoms by the time he dies). He develops a similar feeling for Runner 5 (the player character) and to a lesser extent, to Lem, for his heroic actions and general awesomeness (Nobel Prize Winner, Olympic medallist, self made millionaire philanthropist). Because Sam needs something to believe in, some kind of hero and it breaks him a little each time one falls.
Strengths
I imagine that he's in decent cardiovascular shape even considering he spends most of his time inside the township, since being able to run is a survival skill now, and he is allowed outside the gates for short missions on at least 2 occasions, managing to keep up with Runner 5 during training on a few occasions.
While he probably wasn't out in the wilds as long as some, considering he seems to have been from the local area and at Abel for a long time, it's likely that he is relatively proficient in survival skills, knowing how and where to scavenge food, how to find the best shelter from the zoms and protect himself. I have trouble imagining the people at Abel not training their people in survival skills.
Mental: Sam is fairly intelligent and knowledgeable with a good memory. His job as Abel's chief communications operator requires him to have a good memory for the area surrounding Abel for quite a distance and where supplies can be found. We see that he is able to rapidly estimate how large several groups of zombies are while they're on the move and while giving directions, as well as estimating their speed. He coordinates several runners in the field at once, guiding them in different directions, suggesting that he is fairly quick thinking and adaptable. This also shows in several instances where he has to rapidly change plans in the face of unexpected zombie incidents. He has definitely developed some talent for tactical thinking, for example in S2 M18 where he comes up with a plan for avoiding bullets that is praised by Major de Santa.
Although he says that he was failing his degree in engineering (partly at least because he had no interest in the subject), we can also guess that he was very good academically. He points out that his dad pushed him to do well, throwing a fit when Sam didn't excel in French despite Sam's dad not having any interest in French. He completed his A-levels with good grades to be able to get into a university engineering degree (which generally require A grades in maths and physics, plus a third A level, most likely chemistry, perhaps more since his dad was kind of pushy).
He seems to have a good working knowledge of radio equipment and electronics, certainly enough to keep the communications equipment working and know how to jury rig a connection to rofflenet, although the majority of this has been learnt on the job and from his time hanging around the student radio station at university before the apocalypse.
He also knows quite a bit of sensitive information about Abel Township itself, such as it's strengths, weapons capabilities, manpower etc. all things that he has to be familiar with to keep the Runners informed. He's also the controller for several top secret missions (such as Maxine and Runner 5's excursion to see Van Ark, and Janine's plans for a civil war in New Canton) which suggests that he has access to some rather sensitive information.
Emotional: Sam has survived the zombie apocalypse and come out the other side relatively sane. This suggests that he has a certain strength of will to not just give up entirely, even though he has considered it at points (he does mention that he sometimes thinks the people who don't have the build the future are the lucky ones and that the people who turn into zoms might be better off). He's also tough enough to be able to keep going despite seeing friends killed or turned, sometimes because he's sent them to places.
He's got an optimistic outlook for the most part, able to see the good in most situations, even after the end of the world, for example, he says that he sometimes wakes up and feels grateful for everything, because now he's getting to do the kind of job that had been his dream; working on the radio.
His loyalty and cheerful attitude have definitely worked to his advantage, earning him loyalty and a protective attitude from the people at Abel (seriously, they all fret enormously about him when he's in the hospital). In many ways he's sort of Abel Township's mascot. He definitely seems to earn a certain fondness from all of the Runners under his command, who work hard to keep him upbeat (Runner 7 rebukes Jody for snapping at him in S1M21, stating that he's doing his job to keep them safe, just as the Runners are doing theirs). He also has the very first song on Jack and Eugene's Radio Abel dedicated to him so we know it isn't just the Runners who he's managed to make friends with.
Weaknesses ( Provide canon examples and include special powers/abilities as necessary. You may combine sections as needed, but remember to always be thorough.)
While he is probably in reasonable shape, simply to be able to survive, he probably doesn't have the stamina or speed to run for long distances or outrun anything more than shamblers. He does spend much of his life in a tin shack rather than out doing physical work.
Mental: Sam genuinely has no 'real world' experience as an adult. Or at least, not in any kind of normal environment. He has gone straight from university, still being viewed and treated as a child by his parents and the world at large, with no real responsibilities, to being a survivor of the apocalypse and responsible for people's lives and the well-being of the settlement. He's still childish in the way he relates to people in many ways, for example, how he slips between treating Maxine as a friend, a mentor and a surrogate mother, and is unprepared for the horrors ahead. He's also not had much time to develop adult coping mechanisms to help him deal with stressful situations, both for himself and others (his attempts to help Maxine deal with the knowledge about Paula are painfully awkward).
Sam also displays many of the psychological quirks of people who have been through trauma and societal collapse, such as paranoia and hyper-vigilance, fight-or-flight reflexes brought to the fore and a tendency to dwell on the past and things that have been lost.
Emotional: Sam is canonically suffering from a certain amount of PTSD. This manifests particularly in the 5K trainer with obsessive behaviour that puts both himself and other people at risk (running over and over the same stretch of land searching for the old Runner 5's wallet and then going off alone and unarmed). This is followed by him spending about a week in the infirmary resting because he's been suffering from flashbacks, and probably insomnia and other symptoms.
'At once trusting and untrusting' is how the Runner's guide characterises the survivors. Sam has been made very aware of how much he needs other people to survive and that if he doesn't trust people, he might as well not survive, but he has also had it brought home time and time again that trusting in things, in people, leads to pain. He's seen people die, even people he trusted to survive (such as Runner 10), and has seen what seemed like such a solid and stable and permanent world crumble into chaos.
Related to this, he has developed a certain amount of an 'us vs them' mentality regarding other settlements, most notably New Canton who are the biggest source of competition in the area. He trusts his people with his life, and will give his life for them, but is wary about those from other settlements, reluctant to offer even life-saving help to anyone else. It's a sad fact, but people from other settlements are threats and competition for limited resources. Even when working with New Canton, he is suspicious of their motives and unhappy about working with them.
SAMPLES (ALL SAMPLES MUST BE SET IN THE LUCETIVERSE)
First Person:
Trainingwings Thread here
Third Person:
It was the food shop that got him in the end.
Oh sure, he knew in his head that things were different here. Jack and Eugene had told him and there were just... some things were easy to tell. People smiled more and didn't check over their shoulders in case the undead hordes were about to break through the fences (rocket launchers strongly discouraged). No fences and barbed wire for that matter. Just little things that you didn't really notice until they were gone and then they kind of hit you in the face.
It's not like he hadn't seen the inside of the cupboards in the house either (he was fairly sure that Eugene had decided that he needed feeding up), but it was one thing to see stacks of tins and bottled water, familiar things, and quite another to see, well, this.
It wasn't even a big shop, not by pre-apocalypse standards, barely bigger than the local Tesco down the road from where he'd lived but when he stepped through the door he just had to stop and stare for a moment. A really long moment.
He hadn't stepped into a shop in... god, months, not since the early days of the plague and even then, the shop had been a ransacked mess of smashed glass as people panicked. Seeing one in pristine condition was a little overwhelming.
Seeing one full of actual food was just... He was pretty sure you weren't supposed to shake just from looking at food, but oh my god, they had fruit! Not the tinned stuff in juice and syrup which had become a rare treat, but actual real fresh fruit. Apples and bananas and grapes all piled up and there for the taking and Sam was pretty sure that his mouth started to water just looking at them.
Fruit, man. Fruit.
And to think that he'd been annoyed at mum getting on at him to eat more things that weren't pizza or take away back Before.
But that wasn't it even, even though it was more than he'd ever dreamed of seeing again, because really, even if the zoms vanished overnight, importing grapes from halfway round the world was probably not gonna be a priority. Oh no, the icing on the cake (and there was another thing they had, actual cake with chocolate and icing and stuff), was packed in the ice box and Sam could only laugh when he saw it, a thick, strangled sound that changed into gulping, helpless sobs as the last few days caught up with him all at once and all he could remember was Five and that ridiculous, hellish night when he'd woken Janine up to ask about Ice Cream Roll.