Don't Punch Bippy: Character notes

Posted this lineup on Cohost, but I'm sharing some of the character ideas here:

Genre: Comedy, horror, mystery

Short description:

Two super-fans of a controversial theme park use their in with a security guard friend to sneak in during its off-season, to both enjoy a private experience in the park and investigate supernatural urban legends. But it turns out that the park isn’t haunted by the supernatural, but rather the decisions of an irresponsible billionaire who has managed to cobble together a ticking time bomb of bad programming, ill-gotten assets and disregard for regulations, all in the name of his own ego and profit.They join forces with another teen investigating the park to try to document and expose the park, but find that they’ll have a hard time convincing their security guard friend to help. Even if it turns out the park isn’t haunted, it's still dangerous because of the looming specter of capitalism.

Characters:

• Sammy, age 14 (she/her): One of the main two protagonists, Sammy is a super-fan of the theme park, obsessed with its characters, brand and engineering. She’d be doomed to grow into the equivalent of a Disney Adult if her best friend, Sam, didn’t keep her grounded. She loves making park and ride themed dresses and outfits, and has a special fondness for a maligned character - Bippy, largely for its underdog status. She has a more earnest and innocent love of the park and its construction, and learning about its negligence and malice is a blow to her: but she overcomes it and regroups when push comes to shove and she commits to exposing the park with Sam and Cam. Before the story begins, Sam and Sammy have begun a small Youtube* channel together to document their shared interest in the park.

• Sam, age 14 (they/them): The second main protagonist, Sam is Sammy’s best friend who also has an invested interest in the park - however, theirs is more conspiratorial. They’re a lover of urban legends, conspiracies and cryptids, and their favorite hobby is just convincing people they actually believe in those things, when its really just for fun. While they have collected many weird theories and conspiracies about the park, they take no pleasure in learning some of them are actually true. Sam was a big fan of Cam before the story started, sourcing many of their weird stories/theories from her channel.

• Shiloh, age 16 (he/him): A supporting character, Shiloh is an employee of the park with way more responsibility granted to a teenager than seems wise, but he seems willfully ignorant to the inherent problem and instead takes it as a point of pride. He is the only human presence in the park during its periodic “shut downs,” and helps sneak his cousin Sammy in during one. Unbeknownst to the other characters, he is very much aware of the park’s problems and dangerous flaws, but operates under a fatal case of survivorship bias, thinking that he is just special and that’s why he’s so “good” at his job. He therefore thinks anyone else getting hurt or worse by the park is their own fault, refusing to accept that the park’s owner is the only person liable for any of it until the very end. In this way he operates as an antagonist.

• Cam, age 17 (she/her): A supporting character, Cam is an eclectic Youtuber* who has been constantly reinventing herself to chase the algorithm. She started out as a teen beauty vlogger, but quickly moved on to true crime and wacky theories, before most recently fixating on the theme park’s dark rumors - though it wasn’t really her passion, just something that got views. In an attempt to boost her channel with “something big”, she secretly left on a 24 Hour challenge in the park, sneaking in with the intention of just staying overnight for the challenge. But she ended up extending this “challenge” into several weeks of investigation on a whim after noticing all of the weird quirks of the park. In this she found her actual passion, guerilla journalism, wearing the park’s only human-operated mascot character, Bippy, as her cover. Before the story starts, her presence in the park has been ongoing, and managed to spark its own urban legends to explain her trespasses. Even her Youtube* absence has been a point of wild theory crafting by fans.