- Raven is Soot's son, and one of the many main characters of Pineapple Soda.
- Aviano Llewellyn Vincent deGaetano /ˈeɪvi.a.no/ /ˈluːɛlən/ /diˈɡʊəˈtɑːno/, Gaetano, Aven, or Raven, is one of the main character of Pineapple Soda. He is an ordinary teen who attends Avestan High. Raven's pass times involve scheming, stealing, vandalizing, doing drugs and causing other general mischief in the series 1990's themed setting.
- Much like his name-sake, Raven is very intelligent and quick to solve all sorts of problems. He was a child prodigy with music and math as well as with linguistics as a child. Although he was once quick on his path to success, he unfortunately ended up using his talents in a particularly bad way. Raven and his friends call themselves The Birds –named so in reference to an Alfred Hitchcock film— and patrol school grounds as a gang of ruthless bullies. Despite being so much shorter and less apparently intimidating than the other school bullies, Raven so happens to play the role of leader. This is in part because of often psychotic and tyrannical manipulation of the others. Raven finds enjoyment in the suffering of others and often employs the other teens at their school to help him carry out his many devious schemes. Raven's job as their mob leader typically entails instructing the other bullies on who to harm, how to do so and how they might be rewarded for complying. Whatever Raven says, it always goes. His dictator-like hold over the school has led to the suffering of many, especially Pumpkin. Raven's favourite target is Pumpkin; Be it for his successes or his failures, he is almost always Raven’s number one target. Raven suffers from severe cases of physical abuse, emotional neglect and has always struggled with an array of emotional and psychological disorders. To cope, Raven often re-imagines himself as any type of person he wants to be or in any alternative situation he chooses to believe. He then uses these fake personas and ideologies in his schemes or to obtain whatever it is he wishes to obtain. His schemes and personalities are both typically geared towards manipulation and control over others, or for his own sadistic amusement.[1]
Background[]
Raven's handgun.
- While his crimes originally started of petty and small, he has in recent years taken an interest in bigger crimes such as homicide and drug trafficking, and he hopes to one day progress his bully gang into a crime Syndicate not unlike the one that ensnared his father. Raven grew up in an extremely dilapidated house and is considered to be poor despite his father’s drug money. Although he was told that his sister was sent to boarding school, he’s very aware of her having seen sold into sex trafficking at a young age. Just as well, his mother has been missing for the last eleven years and he strongly believes her to be dead. Raven currently lives alone with his equally sadistic and abusive father, a man who calls himself Soot because of his pyromania and dependence on cigarettes.
Appearance[]
Official photo realism depiction.
- Raven is a short teen with dark auburn, near-black hair in an edgy bowl cut with straight fringe. He wears a matching black tracksuit comprised of baggy nylon pants a short sleeved, high collar nylon hoodie. There are a set of yellow hexagon-patterned reflector patches on each sleeve. In some of his artwork, this tracksuit also includes a set of drawstrings for the hood that end in a pair of corded bird talons. The back of Raven's hoodie features a white skull and cross bones insignia. He also wears a pair of denim converse shoes and purple sweatbands on his wrists. The left of which is also a digital watch with a cutout of a bat on the watch face.
- Raven's most striking visual feature appears to be a giant congenital melanocytic nevus or “giant mole” on his left cheek which bulges off on one corner into a smaller, more regular sized mole slightly above it. The two moles appear to have merged their borders. His right arm also features a set of large moles that he has tattooed into a yin-yang symbol. Raven is known to have a highly feminized body with prominent breasts and hips that would not usually be found on someone who was pronounced male at birth. There is an ongoing debate both within the series and within the fandom as to why this is, though a conclusion has not been reached. His eyes are a deep burgundy colour, though they not the same auburn as his father's eyes and are in fact not shared with any other member of his family.
Personality[]
- Raven is an enigmatic, deeply troubled and often sadistic youth. He is obsessive about completing any plotting and schemes he takes on, usually with the goal of obtaining power over another. Once invested in a new goal or task, he will stop at nothing to succeed, even if it means endangering himself and the people he cares about. Raven's false personalities have gotten so extensive, he has trouble maintaining which are his true personality and which were falsified as a means of manipulating another.[1]
- It is important to note that he does not have 'multiple personality disorder,' as the fictitious disorder often implies having no control over these switches and quite possibly having no knowledge of them. Raven indeed does have control over these switches and can shift between fake personas at will, usually premeditating crimes that will require the actions of another of his false personas. He also retains all information and memories gained from one persona to the next. However, once he becomes invested in these false personalities, he can rapidly lose track of where his lies begin and end, and can become stuck in a loop of being 'too in character,' often believing his own false stories with complete certainty. This makes it more likely he suffers from some form of compulsory lying wherein sufferers become unaware they are lying and can become confused or agitated when confronted with evidence against them.[2]
Relationships[]
- Pumpkin is Raven's classmate and the target of his bullying.[3][2]
- Lime is Raven's classmate and the target of his bullying.[3][2]
- Hawk is Raven's closest friend and classmate.[3][2]
- Turk is Raven's closest friend and classmate.[3][2]
- Robin is Raven's classmate and crush, though they have never formally spoken.[2]
Development[]
Various character details.
- According to the author, Raven's character came to be after a series of chance events. A song on his digital playlist was mistakenly replaced with a completely different song by the artist Peaches. This song played during the earliest creation and concept stages of the character. Raven’s entire character design and personality at that time was suddenly scrapped and changed to reflect the nature of the mistaken upload. The song in question being Operate. The vocals of the song remain the greatest influence on Raven's voice in the animated series as well. Interestingly, his vocabulary also appears to be similar the vocabulary found in songs by that artist.[1]
- "I deleted the song immediately when I realized it wasn't the right one. Then something clicked. . .. I spent hours trying to find it again. I had to find the artist and listen to it again." -series creator Zach Greyson.
- While it is still unclear to what extent corvids come into play within his character, the name might have been chosen due to their intelligence and their popular connection to the macabre.
Trivia[]
- He is often called Aven which may also be a reference to the word Avian meaning 'bird' or belonging to the genus thereof. In addition to being short for his given name, it is also Raven without the first letter.
- Raven is a practicing Roman Catholic.[1]
- Perhaps in reference to corvids, Raven is almost always depicted wearing black.
- Raven can speak fluent Chinese, Italian, French and English.[1]
- Raven has an IQ of 186.[1]
- Raven is one of the few characters who could be reached through both the ask the characters tumblr and the ask-the-characters discord channel. He can still be reached at the latter by typing @ + his character icon or by mentioning his name in the ask-the-characters channel.
- He is highly embarrassed by the fact that he has a severe peanut allergy.
- "...[he's] the toughest mother fucker around but just one peanut could take [him] out." - Hawk [2]
Notes[]
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