California Slim and Alcatraz Headcanons


.
To be added to as more come to me

Chain
General:
. In the Epithet universe everyone speaks one global language, but in RSR they introduced the concept of old world languages to justify Cragior's accent. This isn't cannon but I'm adopting it purely so that Slim can swear a people in old world Italian.

. I've also decided the boys are from Island country because of course they are, its themed around the mafia for fucks sake. Specifically they're from an island called Chaparral since California doesn't exist in the Epithet universe.

.Most criminals will reconsider robbing you if you claim to have an epithet so the fact that Cal and Al specialise in cleaning up inscribed makes them very sought-after. They have a very consistent cash flow but still live like Daniel Dancer, childhood financial insecurity will do that too you.

They dropped out of high school early to work an "apprenticeship" for his uncle, doesn't really talk about what his job actually entailed but with his parents always away and very little food left in the house for him and Bev cash was cash.


Chain

Al

Alcatraz:
. Al is like 2 degrees of separation away from a living statue and acts like it. He's almost incapable of being bored, he'd be perfectly fine standing dead still on display for years at a time (though he'd probably still prefer to be doing something other than that), and though he can't sleep, at night when there's nothing for him to be doing he will go dormant in this manner to conserve energy.

. On a related note he doesn't emote much naturally, but he intentionally exaggerates his reactions when around people because he doesn't want to seem intimidating. A 6 foot something suit of armour with no facial features is hard to read after all.

. Since he never actually sleeps or looses consciousness when Slim's asleep and Al's left in the hotel alone Slim leaves the comedy channel on for him. Its the only channel that will be reliably showing the same thing all night and not suddenly leave Al unable to change the channel when a scary movie comes on. As a side effect its the cause of Al's interest in stand up comedy.

. Isn't technically made of any metal, he's pure magic pretending to be a suit of armour. If you pointed an industrial magnet at him it wouldn't affect him at all until he turned around and noticed it was there, similarly Ramsey's powers only work on him if Ramsey announces what he's trying to do so that Al know how to play along. He also forgets he's supposed to rust for months at a time only to step in a puddle and be stiff and struggling to move a hour later.

. To be clear this isn't something he can control, it's pure epithet instinct to fit into people's perception of him. This is also why he's randomly Scottish.

. Part of the reason he's so willing to go along with Slim's bullshit is because of how he lost Bev. He's not about to let down another sibling even if that means compromising his morals.

. Even though Alcatraz the sentient moral compass didn't exist until after Bev died, Alcatraz the magic suit of armour very much did. Bev would ask Slim to summon him just so she could play dolls with him, he'd always be the knight that had gotten into trouble on his noble quest and she'd be the princess who'd have to go out to save him. Al remembers every single one of the adventures even the ones Slim wasn't present for.

. When Slim was available for these play dates he'd be the dragon Al need saving from.

The gaps in Al's helmet are pretty big so he can see better than you'd expect, but he still has no peripheral vison. That plus his height means he's always has his head down just a little bit.

Epithets don't really have gender since it would be weird for a concept like Sandwich or Toaster to be gendered, but Al likes using He/Him pronouns despite not really considering himself to be a boy. This makes him GNC by both human and epithet standards.

knight explosion

Chain

Cal

.California Slim .
. As much a Slim never wants to admit to ever having relied on his epithet, he was still using it for the first 17 years of his life and that experience still does colour his image of himself.

. Most notably Al has healing abilities which means at some point Slim had healing abilities, healing abilities that allowed him to shrug off injuries that would have sent other kids to the hospital. That combined with his naturally high pain tolerance means he regularly neglects to seek medical attention when he should because he thinks he shouldn't need it.

. Hospitals are where you go when you are weak and vulnerable! And Slim's never vulnerable and especially not weak, in fact he's strong as hell! He can take anything! He can handle himself just fine! He knows first aid!

. The list of medical issues he's currently ignoring includes:

. Chronic nose bleeds. Al came out his nostril and permanently fucked it up a bit, plus his high blood pressure means even sneezing can set him off on a bad day.

. High blood pressure. Canonically he straight up doesn't believe the doctor who told him this, quote: "If my blood really was pressurised theoretically I could just slit my wrist and use it to squirt blood at people." He should probably be taking medication for that, or at least cutting back on smoking.

. Fatigue. The stamina cost for his abilities and Al's come out of the same stamina pool and being the one with a physical body Slim's the one who feels that harder. He's constantly tired and running on coffee and spite. The switch from "night shifts" to the strictly regimented prison lifestyle is not helping.

. He's lost all hearing in his mauled ear. He's been successfully ignoring this the longest but it's becoming increasingly evident he needs hearing aids. He needs the captions on for everything and regularly struggles to keep up with conversations, he's only been going out at night for ages now just to avoid big, overwhelming crowds that make it impossible for him to tell where a sound is coming from. Any attempts to bring this up to him are quickly shut down, it's sunk costs at this point.

. He's always either completely apathetic to everything and won't move from his hotel for days or extremely switched on and ready to fight anything and everything that moves. The only consistency between these two moods in his putting off eating to a nebulous later that never comes.

. One day in the future a treasure hunter will dig up California Slim's buried mafia treasure and they will find a metal box filled completely with old baseball cards and cool novelty knives he's never used.

. There's a betting pool in the prison based around guessing Slim's real name, the punchline is that California is his real name. He's actually been introducing himself as California, Slim (as in "Hi I'm California, most people call me Slim") and everyone just misheard him. Slim is unaware of the confusion.

.His full name is California Holmby Hills, Holmby Hills being the neighbourhood right next to Beverly Hills to keep with the theme.

. When Bev was alive Slim would be the one to do her hair, he'd do her bow up every morning before breakfast. As a adult Slim only wears a tie specifically to have something to put a knot in while he waits for the coffee to boil.

Will die before he thinks about his sexuality or gender. He doesn't really do self reflection.

base ball

Beverly Hills

7 years younger than Slim, so she would have been 10 when he was 17.

Doesn't really remember what her parents look like, she's used to being left with Slim or other family members for long periods of time.

Little trouble maker, caught it from her older brother. She's been waging an ongoing prank war against him for years now.

Wore alot of Slim's hand-me-downs, probably would have worn more if her school's dress code didn't demand girls wear skirts, it's so much harder to climb trees with that much fabric in the way.

Had an arsonist streak when she was little, it wasn't so much a destructive thing as it was scientific intrest but it got her in a fair bit of trouble anyway.

This only really stopped when someone pointed out to her that stars were essentially giant perpetual explosions in space and that's been her obsession ever since.

Wants to be an astrologer, or a reporter, or a detective, oh or a teacher, or-

Really bad potty mouth, she didn't realise fuck was a bad word for months until she said it infront of a teacher.

Undiagnosed ADHD.

If Slim's the family "scapegoat" and Al's the "hero", Beverly is the "mascot."

As much as Slim and Al (they shared the same memories for the first half of their life so its hard to make a distinction between who was in charge of the body at that time) were made to be responsible for Beverly's physical health, Bev too became kinda responsible for looking after her brother's mental health far earlier than appropriate. It wasn't something they intentionally forced on her of course, but mental illness can be hard to disguise and when you see that your beloved big brother is suffering because of the work they need to do to look after you it can be hard not to internalise it as being your responsibility.

She'd adopt the persona of the always happy, always scheming lovable scamp, rarely truly more than mock upset infront of others and especially her brother, trying to play class clown to cheer him up. But truthfully she was a lonely child who never really had many friends in her classes and she'd absolutely never come to her brother with problems she was facing so she wouldn't add to his burden, trying to deal with things alone and rarely succeeding.

She knows alot more about what goes on then people like to think she does and is distinctly aware of how much of her big brothers mental health rests on her.

Bonus:

Jericho Felocity

Absolutely has dietary issues. It takes around 500g of carbohydrate to fill your glycogen stores – which will last you for around 60-90 minutes of running, and Jericho is literally always running.

Was permitted extra rations while in prison to stop him crashing out, but otherwise survives off energy drinks, protein bars/gels, and the strangest bachelor meals you have ever seen.

I'm serious, he's a mad scientist in the kitchen and is willing to eat basically anything. Look up prison recipes for a better insight on the kinda food I'm talking about here, you ever hear of The Spread, do you wanna try some Correctional Cake?

I'm not even gonna try to tackle how how the whole "I can only wear sports wear because everything else disintegrates on my rapidly moving body" thing works, but I will say it should probably entitle him to some sort of disability help.

The Epithet universe probably has some catch all diagnosis they can give to any inscribed who's powers come with side effects serve enough to need an accessibility plan (I'm playing with the name Distruptive Epithet Syndrome or DES,)but I don't know if really weird mundies would be entitled to it. Chances are he is not getting as much assistance as he should be.

Was pretty big in non-criminal speedrunning communities too. It caused some drama when he got arrested. He lost his partnership with Gamersupps (╥ω╥ )

His flavor was called Speed Grease.

Definitely Autistic.

Canonically bandied about between a bunch of different foster families before ending up on the streets, and then developed a skill that sets him apart from both mundies and inscribed and leaves him misunderstood by both sides. My boy probably has some abandonment issues.

"If I do this just right and show that I'm competent and dedicated and the best at what I do maybe people will notice and see that I'm valuable enough to be worth keeping."

Says he doesn't feel lonely but really he's just gotten used to it.