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Name: Shepherd Adalsteinn

Nickname: Shep

Age: 20

Birthday: January 16

Sign: Capricorn

Gemstone: Onyx

Blood Type: B

Fav. Food: Pancakes, omelettes, biscuits and gravy... actually, Shepherd really, really loves breakfast, so most breakfast foods rank high on his list.

Hated Food: Boiled hotdogs, frozen pizza, frozen pot pies, frozen burritos... basically, anything cheap, fast and easy that he ate when growing up.

School: N/A

Hobbies:

Cooking: Shep has been cooking since he was about nine years old, helping his mother in the kitchen and doing his best to stay under his father's radar in the process. It was quiet time that he got with his mother, so it quickly became one of his favorite things -- he learned to treasure the time spent with her, and learned equally quickly that poorly prepared food equaled a pissed off father. It was more through design than natural talent that he became good at it, but rather than resent his main household chore, Shep chose to embrace it and make his mother proud by constantly improving. He takes the most enjoyment from cooking for Erika, but the fact that he loves the act itself is probably what keeps him from going insane with the hours he works at Denny's.

Writing: Oftentimes Shep will get home during the wee hours of the morning and not be able to sleep, largely due to the fact that he's exhausted. (Yeah, it doesn't make sense to him either.) He'll boot up the internet on his ancient desktop and catch himself up on his Tumblr dash, then generally update with cooking tips and new recipes that he's trying out. He enjoys getting feedback from his followers when they experiment, and oftentimes integrates their advice into his own cooking. He's somewhat Tumblr famous, largely because his blog isn't simply recipes -- it also includes commentary on the cooking process and the people who eat it, some of it more bitchy than others. He has a good internet voice, and is definitely more adept at socializing online than he is in person.

Thrifty Shopping: Shep is poor. He has been poor his entire life and will probably be poor until he dies. Ergo, he has learned how to scout good deals and buy in bulk -- he almost considers it an art at this point. Garage sales, thift stores and Walmart are among his favorite places to part with his money, and he has a shrewd enough eye that he generally doesn't go home with a POS that will fall apart within a week. He is a smart, conservative shopper, and he definitely knows how to get the most bang for his buck.

Gardening: Vegetables are expensive. Most people probably don't really consider it, but Shep knows that they are, and more than that, he knows that high quality fruits and veggies are even more expensive. He has a little sister to feed on the weekends, and he doesn't want to be serving her crap, so he wheedled and convinced the landlord to let him set up greenboxes on the roof to grow vegetables in. He freezes most of his vegetables so that he can get the most use out of them, as he doesn't produce nearly enough to make it worth the effort to try to sell them. Most things Shep does, anyway, aren't for a profit; they're a means to get by.

Virtues:

Frugal: Waste not, want not might as well be Shep's personal mantra. Everything that he has is used until the point where it can no longer function, and just about everything he owns is secondhand. He'll buy a couch for thirty bucks and make a slipcover out of discount fabric to hide the fact that it's old and ugly. He'll buy new pillows for the beds and then rip the stuffing out of the old ones and shove them into the couch cushions. He buys off brand products and uses food until it is gone; he gets creative with leftovers and tries not to make more than he intends to eat or share unless the food is going to spoil otherwise. Every penny is accounted for, everything is used to its full potential, and he is very, very smart with his resources.

Honest: If you want to know where you stand, you can always ask Shep. He doesn't subscribe to bullshit, so sometimes this trait is borderline flaw, but for the most part, he does not use his honesty for evil. He won't venture his opinion on unfavorable things without being prompted, but if you ask him for his honest opinion, you will get it. He is much more free with his thoughts on positive things, though often his compliments are backhanded and full of knuckle ("That sweater looks very good on you; it actually hugs your waist and shows you have breasts.") so it takes a little bit of getting used to for the average person. Still, Shep believes that the best kind of friend is the one who will tell you when you are being a dumbass, so for those he really cares for, he strives to that sort of friend.

Hardworking: No one in the world will be able to say that Shep doesn't pull his own weight and then some. Nothing in this world is free or fair, and he learned that lesson from a young age, so he understands that what you get out of the world is very rarely proportionate to what you put in it. So he works hard, a lot harder than someone his age ought to have to, and he doesn't b***h. He gets the job done and picks up everyone else's slack when he has to, because at the end of the day, him stomping his feet and demanding everybody do their own job doesn't exactly get the job done, does it?

Principled: As far as Shep is concerned, there is no easy way out in life, and even if it was offered to him, he wouldn't trust it to stand up to the test of time. He doesn't cut corners and cheat, he abides the law and he plays fair even if he dislikes you. While everyone else might be getting their knees dirty to get ahead, he believes in hard work, a solid foundation and earning everything that you get, and so he lives his life as morally upright as he can. If you so happen to find yourself in a tight spot and need help getting out of it, if you can convince him to help you, you can be sure that he'll do it all on the right side of the law and no one will be able to attack you for getting your nose clean. Of course, you have to prove to him that you aren't going to turn right back around and do the same thing over again or he won't think you deserve his help, but he is just thoroughly a good person to know in a pinch.

Unless, of course, your pinch requires bending the law. Then no. No, he will not help you, get out of his home.

Flaws:

Resentful: Hurt Shep and someone he loves, and he will never forget it. He will never let you forget it, either. He holds a grudge and he is not above the childish notion that you should have to earn your way back into his good graces. The problem is, it's so incredibly difficult to do that once you have wronged him that most people don't feel it's worth the effort. So Shep just quietly stews in his resentment, not even giving people the general three chances to screw up -- one strike, and if you don't come begging your way back into his life, he'll just hate you forever. And oh, he'll let you know.

Demanding: In his personal life, Shep has very set ideas on what he expects from people. He doesn't tolerate whining, waste, or unreasonable expectations, despite the fact that the level of behavior he expects from those around him is pretty unreasonable. He puts forth so much of himself on a daily basis, working himself to nearly the bone only to come home on weekends and take care of his sister, that he will be quite the d**k to anyone who dares complain about how hard they have it. He expects the people around him to take care of their own business and keep a stiff upper lip about it. The only exception to this is work, where he is low man on the totem pole; were he the boss, his employees would learn to hate and fear him, but considering he's just a cog in the wheel, he seethes in resentment while he works harder than everyone else.

Harsh: When you screw up (and you will, trust him, you will) Shepherd is not exactly kind about it unless your name is Erika Adalsteinn. Even then, he is not as soft with her as he perhaps should be, because it's important that she learn valuable lessons in order to become a fully-functioning adult. He doesn't mince words and there is part of him that believes you should be made to feel like an idiot, or unreasonable, or incompetent, because obviously you were. This doesn't exactly make him many friends, or really inspire people to come to him and own up to their mistakes. Still, he believes that the only way to grow is to see exactly where you need to grow, and he fully subscribes to the philosophy that oftentimes you must be cruel to be kind.

Distrusting: Shep operates on a guilty-until-proven-innocent basis. He will suspect you before he'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and you have to earn your way into his affections and trust. The world hasn't shown him a great deal of good and so he has learned that you have to take care of yourself and the people you care about; others will only let you down if you rely on them, and if you let the wrong sort of people know too much about you, it is only going to stab you in the back later. Consequently, he almost never relies on others, and has a difficult time working inside of a team. He tries to do too much to compensate for not wanting to rely on others, which can lead to failures in communication, unnecessary risk-taking, and general incompetence.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Eyes: Brown.

Hair: Ash blonde. In a style similar to this; it wouldn't go past his collar at the longest. (Sometimes you have to refresh the link to get the image to work. It's weird, I know. B|a)

Face: Thin lips with a slightly topheavy mouth; thin, arched eyebrows. He has a scar across his forehead, but he wears his bangs swept over it so that you can't see most of it -- just a bit of the scar is visible on the outside of his left eyebrow.

Clothes: Something like this! He is a line cook, so. The white outfit, the apron tied around his waist.

Reserved

ON THE CIVILIAN:

He looks solid! I only had one concern. The LOYAL versus DISTRUSTING dynamic gave me a little pause. He is loyal and entirely self-sacrificing for the people he cares about and trusts, but for the most part, he doesn't trust anyone. I try to caution people against choosing one of the four virtues to highlight something that is only true part of the time or for a select group of people. I would not have mentioned this if I didn't have criticism for the attacks! But I thought it worth a little comment. Do with it what you will.

ON THE SENSHI:

Regular and super look awesome.

Three minutes is too long for his eternal attack. I would bump it down to two, or put a caveat that he cannot strike the betraying Negas while they are under this curse. Otherwise, he would be able to cast it and then kill the Negas while they are utterly unable to strike him back, even if you say he usually runs. The ability to do that would still be there, which is too strong.

Also, I think you need a more specific way for him to cast his attack at eternal. He can't keep eye contact with both of the betrayers at once so you'll have to tweak what you used for regular and super here. My suggestion would be that he looks at ONE Nega to start it, and then it causes that Nega to look at their nearest ally and -- bam! That is how it begins. In this way, it could only affect two Negas though.

If you wanted it to be an AoE, then I would, again, drop it down to 90-120 seconds for a duration, set that it only works within a certain area (like 10ish feet all around him?), and then give him a casting motion that can be stopped/disrupted. Or maybe say that he has to stay within a certain range to keep it up.

Basically! This attack is really interesting. It just needs a way for it to be avoided, a clearer cast, and a shorter duration. I hope that helped. =D