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Character Base

• Character Name: Michael "Mike" Munroe
• Age: 19
• Canon (Date/Year Released)/Canon Point: Until Dawn | August 2015 | Post-Game (Everyone Survives ending)

• Items Coming Along:
🦋 Clothes
🦋 Shotgun & ammunition
🦋 Handgun (revolver) & ammunition
🦋 Machete
🦋 His lighter
🦋 A cell phone

• Content Warnings for Character:
Content warnings for Until Dawn generally include blood, gore, graphic violence (including decapitation and limb removal), cannibalism, monstrous possession and transformation, medical experimentation, psychological horror, harm to animals, and other themes typical of a slasher/horror film. In addition to these themes, Mike comes with content warnings for language, sex, and period-typical sexism. Finally, the initiating event of the canon is a prank in which a girl is manipulated into a state of partial undress while unknowingly being recorded.

Character Background

• History: Mike at the Until Dawn wiki

• Core Relationships:

🦋 JESSICA — During the main events of Until Dawn (which take place in February 2015, one year after the events of the prologue), Jessica "Jess" Riley is Mike's girlfriend and one of his most persistent, driving motivations. Though Mike and Jessica were friends and part of the same social group in the prologue, when Until Dawn begins they have just recently begun dating, and are still very much in the honeymoon stage of their relationship. Mike, a romantic, sees the return to the mountain lodge as an opportunity to spend time alone with Jessica, and early on they separate from the rest of the group to find a smaller side cabin where they intend to have sex. When Jessica is forcibly dragged through the glass window of the cabin and abducted by the game's antagonist, Mike wastes no time in chasing after her; if he chooses "Risky" options during the chase rather than "Safe" ones and successfully completes his QTEs, he is able to catch up to Jessica in time to frighten off the antagonist and save her life (if he arrives too late, he finds her already dead). Either way, Jessica's fate remains one of Mike's predominant thoughts throughout the course of the game, and his concern for her well-being colors his both his actions and his relationships with others, either by blaming them for what happened to her or driving himself to prevent any further misfortune from happening to anyone else, the way it did to Jess.

🦋 EMILY — Emily is Mike's former girlfriend (and Jessica's former best friend, until Mike and Jessica's new relationship caused a rift between them) and, despite their breakup, still someone he cares a great deal for. He is still on good terms with her and she is his second-highest starting relationship when Until Dawn begins; their previous relationship is also the catalyst for the infamous prank on Hannah that initiates the events of the game. Emily is described as being both high-maintenance and insecure, seeing Mike as a "catch" and feeling threatened when other girls take interest in "her man". It is for Emily's sake that the prank is developed and that Mike participates in it; even after the tragedy occurs, Mike and Emily remain in a relationship for nearly a year, as the game indicates that they have only broken up "a few weeks" before the one-year reunion at the lodge. Though he is no longer romantically interested in her, he is still invested in her well-being and will hug her and demonstrate concern for her throughout the events of the game. However, if Emily is bitten during her escape from the mines, Mike will prioritize the safety of the group in the face of the possibility that Emily might transform into a monster herself, and will be faced with the choice of shooting her as a preventative measure or taking the risk of letting her live. Regardless of his choice, it is at this point that their relationship will drop irrevocably to zero.

🦋 HANNAH — Though Hannah's feelings toward Mike border on infatuation, Mike does not reciprocate them. When Jessica comes up with a prank to embarrass Hannah for her interest in Mike by recording her in a compromising situation, Mike allows himself to be the bait for the prank and writes Hannah a note claiming that he wants to meet up with and make out with her. Though Emily insists that the prank is warranted because Mike is her boyfriend and Hannah should know better than to harbor attraction to him, Mike's motives have nothing to do with the relationship drama; indeed, he responds to Emily's assertion that he is "her man" by arguing that he is "nobody's man". Given Mike's behavior during and after the prank, it is apparent he is solely in it for the prospect of having a girl engage in sexualized behaviors for his benefit. He is also the first to apologize to Hannah and admit to the prank when it is discovered, and the first to propose going after Beth and Hannah after they run out of the cabin. Though Mike's behavior toward Hannah is manipulative and indifferent to her feelings, it is also not the product of malicious intentions and he harbors no ill will toward her. Indeed, when he later discovers Hannah's ultimate fate, he is horrified at the realization of what happened to her and regrets the role he played in toying with her feelings.

🦋 SAM — Though Sam and Mike are initially not particularly close, as Sam was Hannah's best friend at the time of the prank and Mike was one of the focal players in it, over the course of Until Dawn they build a mutual rapport as the two most resilient and adaptable characters in the game. They are also the only two characters with plot armor and will always survive until at least the final chapter. At this point, they have build enough of a relationship of trust and understanding that Mike is able to communicate his plan for survival to Sam through a mere series of glances; if Sam fails her first QTE and attracts the attention of the antagonist, Mike will draw attention to himself to save her and will suffer a near-fatal wound as a result. If Sam succeeds her QTE, she must later do the same and draw attention to herself to save Mike when the plan necessitates that he move to a nearby lightbulb and break it. Additionally, Mike and Sam will always be the last two characters to leave the lodge before it explodes, further emphasizing their commitment to teamwork and protecting each other. If Sam fails, or is killed, Mike will sacrifice himself by using his cigarette lighter to ignite the gas and explode the lodge as an alternative means of executing the plan.

🦋 JOSH — Following Jessica's abduction, and Josh's subsequent reveal as the "Horror Movie Villain" who orchestrated a series of pranks against the assembled cast as retaliation for the pranks they played a year ago, Mike incorrectly assumes that Josh is also responsible for Jessica's death and blames him for his actions. This accusation legitimately surprises Josh (whose intentions were always only to frighten, but not to physically harm), and contributes to his psychotic break as it implicates his continuing trauma over the deaths of his sisters Beth and Hannah a year ago. Mike's anger over Josh's apparent involvement in Jessica's fate leads to him actively threatening Josh with his gun (though he later insists that he would not have actually harmed Josh as he is not that type of person). However, when more of the game's events unfold and it becomes apparent who is really responsible for Jessica's abduction, Mike apologizes to Josh for his earlier reaction and demonstrates concern over his well-being. As they attempt to leave the mines, Josh will always be either abducted or killed by the antagonist; Mike will abandon him to this fate and hide with a stricken, terrified look on his face. He will later express guilt over these actions, confessing that he chose to save himself even at Josh's expense — a rarity for Mike, who spends most of the game deeply invested in the well-being of the people around him and the preservation of the group as a whole.

🦋 MATT, ASHLEY, AND CHRIS — The remaining three members of the eight-person playable cast of Until Dawn. Though Mike is friends in varying degrees with all of them and shows investment in their survival throughout the course of the game, they are not as significant to Mike's personal narrative as the above-listed others. However, as fellow members of the main cast, they do warrant a mention in his Core Relationships.

Character Personality Through Key Moments

(2+) Positive Experiences:

🦋 MAN OF ACTION — Despite the game initially setting Mike up to look like the standard "dumb jock" horror movie stereotype, the events of Until Dawn quickly reveal himself to be a man of action, willing to face danger, take risks, and do what needs to be done to protect the people around him. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is when he gets his hand caught in a bear trap in the sanatorium; with a machete in his possession, the game allows Mike to make the choice between using the machete to pry open the trap (which will break it, preventing him from using it in a later decision), or to simply use the machete to amputate two of the fingers on his non-dominant hand (which will preserve it for later). Either way, Mike suffers excruciating pain, yet pulls himself together and continues his journey through the area, spending the rest of the game with a maimed hand. He is also the one who volunteers to return to the sanatorium in search of Josh and the cable car key that will allow them to escape, and the one who swiftly moves to shoot Emily for the preservation of the group when they (incorrectly) assume that being bitten by one of the monstrous antagonists may turn her into the same moster, herself. Finally, if need be, Mike will willingly sacrifice himself by blowing up the lodge with the flame from his lighter (assuming the plan to use the broken lightbulb fails), determined to the last to see the plan to eliminate the monsters through to the end regardless of his own fate.

🦋 CHARISMATIC — Described as the "big guy on campus", Mike is undeniably one of the most charismatic characters in the game. He is the love interest of at least three characters (Emily, Jessica, and Hannah), and rarely goes out of his way to deliberately antagonize anyone without an explicit reason for doing so — as in the case of Josh, whom he temporarily blames for Jessica's death, or Emily, when he fears she may transform into a monster and harm the rest of the survivors. We are also told that he was the class president in high school and most of the other characters see him as a source of admiration: Emily is insecure because Mike's personality tends to attract interest from others, Jessica is romantically attracted to him, Hannah goes out of her way to get a tattoo in the hopes that by "doing something wild" it will attract his attention, Chris remarks on his physical attractiveness and strength, and Matt perceives him as a fellow "alpha male" and feels a need to assert his own dominance around him. For better or for worse, he is the type of person that others notice and respond to, and naturally falls into a leader-type role in crisis situations.

🦋 ANIMAL-LOVER — Throughout the course of Until Dawn, Mike is given the opportunity to interact with a number of wild animals, and demonstrates that he is an animal-lover. When he and Jessica encounter a deer that has been mauled by the antagonist, Mike is given the option to either "comfort" or "mercy-kill" it — but either way, he will take action to do something to alleviate the animal's suffering. He will also express horror during his snowball fight with Jessica if she chooses to throw a snowball at a bird that has landed nearby (which kills it), and their relationship will suffer as a result. Finally, it is possible for Mike to befriend a domesticated wolf during his first foray into the sanatorium, which will have positive results when he later returns: the wolf will remember him and accompany him on his second trip through, helping to warn him of nearby threats and even sacrificing itself to save him if his choices would otherwise cause him to come to harm.

(2+) Negative Experiences:

🦋 INSENSITIVE — While not overtly cruel or malicious, Mike's actions in the early parts of the game reveal that he is often insensitive when it comes to the feelings of others. He fails to be empathetic when it comes to either Emily's insecurities about losing him or Hannah's potential humiliation as a result of the prank; he frequently seems not to anticipate that others might be affected negatively by his own actions and fails to appreciate the depths of the hurt those actions can sometimes cause. When Hannah discovers the prank (and that she is being filmed in a state of partial undress with several other people hiding and watching), Mike's kneejerk reaction is to offer excuses, attempting to claim it was all just a joke without validating the legitimate hurt she feels. He later suggests chasing after her, to which Sam replies derisively that he is likely the last person that Hannah wants to see right now, and implying that his presence would do more harm than good. He also remains on good terms with Emily, his ex-girlfriend, even though he has moved on to dating Jessica, her best friend; though their mutual feelings about him cause Emily and Jessica to butt heads throughout the course of the game, Mike does not appear to consider that his own actions in maintaining his relationships with both of them might be one of the root causes of their disagreements. Though Mike does clearly care about the people around him, he is not always mindful of how his own words and actions might affect them, and often only discovers that he has hurt them after the damage is already done.

🦋 NARCISSISTIC — In-game conversation reveals that Mike's greatest fear is "isolation", but of the social variety rather than the physical variety, and this fear has resulted in certain narcissistic behaviors on his part. He prefers harmonious group settings (usually with himself as the man in charge) and dislikes it when there is strife between others around him. Despite being furious with Josh for his presumed involvement in Jessica's death, Mike loses faith in Chris when Chris hits Josh for similar actions taken toward his own girlfriend — because he dislikes the appearance of two members of the group turning on each other. Mike is uncomfortable with discord in social settings, which also manifests in his habit of trying to quickly gloss over hurt feelings to restore harmony. However, it should be noted that this is less to do with Mike being a genuine peacemaker rooted in empathy and more out of a gregarious personality most at home with taking and holding authority in a group setting. Given that he was class president in high school and it is his aspiration to be president of the nation someday, it is likely that Mike considers interpersonal conflict to be a failure on his part, being unable to cultivate and maintain the group dynamic he desires.

🦋 TRAUMATIZED — Like the rest of the survivors of Until Dawn, there can be no doubt that Mike has been traumatized by the events of the past two years. Even in the best possible ending, Mike is left to live with the knowledge that the events of the prologue, and the prank he participated in, have resulted in:

• one of his friends being killed, decapitated, and cannibalized
  
• another friend being trapped in the mines with a broken leg, forced to cannibalize her own sister to survive, transformed into a monster, and eventually killed
  
• a third friend carried off by said monster and presumed dead because Mike abandoned him to save himself
  
• his girlfriend being abducted and brutally maimed / scarred
  
• his ex-girlfriend being traumatized, their relationship irrevocably damaged, because he thought he had to sacrifice her for the well-being of the group
  
• a bystander murdered after trying to assist them
  
• an awareness of the malevolent supernatural forces on the mountain and the brutal history of the experimentation that historically occurred there
  
• THE MAN HACKED OFF TWO OF HIS FINGERS WITH A MACHETE

It is safe to say that he is extremely psychologically compromised at this point.

Deer Country Attributes

• Canon Powers: Despite the supernatural elements of Until Dawn, Mike is a totally normal human with no canon superpowers. He is, however, a physically fit young adult male capable of engaging in activities such as leaping, climbing, and running. He is also shown to be capable of using a variety of firearms including a rifle, revolver, semiautomatic, and shotgun.

• Blood Type: Darkblood
• Omen: His wolf, who he befriends in the Sanatorium.
• Blessed Day: April 10th, his birthday
• Patron Pthumerian: Argonaut

• Blood Power Manifestation: One of the key themes of Until Dawn is the idea that the past cannot be changed and every choice contributes to a "butterfly effect". Mike's Darkblood powers will play on this concept as both time manipulation and reality warping to a certain degree. His abilities will allow him to manipulate events and his environment to make them more favorable or to ensure positive outcomes — for example, if he falls off a cliff, his abilities might manifest a branch he can grasp onto to help slow his fall, or if he winds up trapped in a dark area, they might facilitate him finding supplies to construct a makeshift torch out of. At higher levels of ability, he will be able to undo-and-redo scenarios within a very limited range of time, such as backtracking from a choice to go left (which led to injury) and going right instead. Naturally, there would be no guarantee that going right would be any better a decision than going left was, but his abilities would allow him to carve a new path regardless.

In essence, Mike's Darkblood powers will allow him to 1) produce QTEs, 2) succeed more frequently at QTEs, and 3) take back bad decisions. Any other developments to his abilities will be roughly in alignment with the idea of him manipulating the immediate world around him to make it more favorable to his purposes.

Writing Samples

SAMPLE: Mike on the TDM (2+ threads included)

The Player

• Player Name: Alex
• Player Age: I am 18+!
• Player Contact: PM to either of my character journals preferred!
• Permissions: Here.

Other Characters

I also play Renfri from The Witcher at laniidae!

Link to Character 1 overall AC: HERE