PROLEGOMENON

JULIO DIAZ

Julio Diaz (not to be confused with Biker) is a young human man living in UV-00282 Texas.

His dark brown hair is textured and styled in thick, bulky, short dreads that stick up in rows from his head. He has dark brown eyes, brown skin, and a mole on his cheek near his mouth. Julio isn't very tall, and stands with his back straight to try to mitigate this fact. His nose is flat and broad, and his cheeks are round. He's usually shown wearing a black leather jacket over a light orange T-shirt, sunglasses clipped into the neckline, skinny jeans, and big bulky boots.

He matches his screen name (TENGO POCO GAY) with Amada Trejo, his cousin, as an in-joke. He types in proper case, but uses a lot of 50s slang, especially slang from biker circles. His icon's a pair of sunglasses.

When his friend Diego Suaviter's birthday comes around in December of 2020, Julio and his friends play a mobile game that takes them to another universe, setting off the events of PROLEGOMENON. Julio's one of the later players to join the game, and when he's introduced, he's already working on understanding his new powers.

PERSONALITY

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Julio likes to play around with his friends, doing bits but being careful not to cross the line into genuinely upsetting people. In his very first sighting in PROLEGOMENON, he changes Isabelle Davis's nickname in the group chat to 'the french one', as a joke about their nationality. He's easygoing and most of the other players have high opinions of him, or at least don't have any beef with him. He does his best to foresee issues and mitigate them before they happen, which can lead to him coming off as kind of a control freak when he goes too overboard with this habit. Julio encourages his friends to talk to him if they need it, and does do what he can to avoid overstepping on other people.

His whole style is straight from USAmerica, 1950's era - despite not needing it, he carries a comb around with him, and in his downtime he likes to hang around a local diner in his neighborhood. He used to attend college, majoring in business, but he found it way too boring and dropped out. He's still very well educated in the ways of economy from his time in higher education, though he mostly uses it to advise his parents on what stocks to invest in.

He does have some struggles around his gender identity, trying his best to present as a cisgender man to his friends online, nervous that - if he were to be discovered somehow - they would reject him, especially Rhett Miller, who he has some feelings for.

TIMELINE

Pre-PROLEGOMENON

Julio's born as the eldest child of four, and has spent most of his life acting as a third parent for his younger sisters. To get away from the noise of it all, he'd sneak off to his father's office as a child, where his dad would invite him to watch his and his friend's TTRPG sessions they'd play. Julio loved these fantasy roleplays dearly, especially the numbers side, finding he's very proficient in math.

When he's 11 years old, he tries to set up a TTRPG campaign of his own, inviting his cousin Amada to play with him. While the campaign doesn't pan out, a few years later Amada invites him to her friend group chat, where he gets to talk to peers who also like TTRPGs and roleplaying.

After high school, Julio's funnelled immediately into college by his mother, an overachiever herself - a trait he didn't inherit. He throws himself at getting a degree for a couple of years before impulsively dropping out, changing his entire lifestyle... his name, identity, and even interests and 'aesthetics'. It's this time that he comes out as transgender, though he's already been pretending to be a boy online since he was a little kid, so only Amada truly knows about this identity update. Julio spends the next year leading up to PROLEGOMENON drifting a bit aimlessly, picking up odd jobs to make ends meet.

PROLEGOMENON

SPOILER

RELATIONSHIPS

Rhett Miller

Despite being a lurker, Rhett is one of the few people Julio does get nervous talking to. He doesn't think he's really on Rhett's radar, but he kind of hopes he is, as mortifying as that fact is. Due to Julio's complicated feelings about his own identity, he has a hard time hanging out with Rhett without feeling like a creep, so he doesn't talk to Rhett often.

Over time, Julio moves past his own issues and is honest with Rhett about his feelings. The two put a pin in the conversation.

Amada Trejo

Growing up in a tightly-knit family, Amada and Julio have had frequent family visits since they were little kids. They have a lot of in-jokes, and it's Julio who got Amada into roleplay in the first place, which expanded the friend group as a whole. He thinks she's very polished and fashionable, and looks forward to seeing her future work.

He doesn't tell her this, but he buys all her albums when she releases them. He's her only monetary supporter.

Diego Suaviter

Julio's very picky about TTRPGs and game running, but he feels that Diego's a pretty good substitute when he doesn't feel like running a campaign for the friend group. He finds it amusing to watch, though he doesn't particularly consider the two of them friends. Julio notices that a lot of Diego's problems seem to be self-inflicted.

While he knows his input isn't necessarily appreciated, Julio still struggles with the impulse not to give it.

The Players

He has a bad habit of meddling in issues that don't necessarily need his involvement, trying his best to keep the peace and make everyone understand each other. Even though he gets the sense this can be annoying to some others, he still has a positive relationship with everyone else, and is happy to see when they do value his input.

SPOILER

TRIVIA

Julio's mother and Amada's father are twins.

Before dropping out, Julio's favorite drink used to be Monster Energy - now it's orange cream soda.

He'd been lying about his gender and name online since he first started his Internet presence, making it easier to lie to his friends about being cisgender.