Name: Ana
Age: 31
Contact: cuddlebug, Ana#1461 on discord, or journal PM


Journal: failderp
Name: Steve Burnside
Age: 17
Canon: Resident Evil (Code: Veronica, Darkside Chronicles)
Canon Point: just before his death, after getting speared through the abdomen to save Claire

Canon World

(I couldn't find a proper setting page so wrote a very brief description, but did link to the game pages themselves.)

Resident Evil, back in the day, defined the survival horror genre. It's our world (circa 1998, to Steve) with the addition of B.O.W.s or bio-organic weapons, mutagenic creatures created by the Umbrella Corporation to become killing machines. Umbrella experimented with a series of viruses to create these weapons, which they intended to sell to the highest bidders on the black market. The experiments, however, caused a series of outbreaks from which the series protagonists had to escape -- fighting and solving puzzles to progress through whatever area in which they were trapped.

This all began about five months prior to Steve's canon, with the Arklay mansion incident where several S.T.A.R.S. members including the game protagonists Chris and Jill were trapped with a whole mess of zombies and B.O.W.s, and uncovered Umbrella's actions. Two months later, there was an outbreak of T-Virus in nearby Raccoon City, resulting in nearly the entire city turning into zombies. The protagonists of this game, Leon and Claire, discover that the RCPD Chief took bribes to cover up the existence of the research facility in the Arklay mountains, and in fact there is another in the city itself where there is a new, more terrifying virus designated "G" in development. The pair escape the city with the lone survivor, and Claire continues her search for her brother Chris.

Code: Veronica and the Game of Oblivion section in The Darkside Chronicles cover another such instance of these outbreaks. Three months after the destruction Raccoon City, Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside are trapped on an Umbrella Corporation private prison island (Claire was taken into custody while searching for her brother) and then a secret research base in Antarctica. They are chased by zombies and B.O.W.s and terrorized by a madman named Alfred Ashford, then later his even madder twin sister Alexia who has bonded with the Progenitor virus. The atmosphere of the games is tense and dangerous, monsters lurking around every turn and the protagonists only having one another and their weapons to rely on. The stress of the game is increased by limited save slots, healing items, and inventory space, meaning you have to pick and choose what areas to clear out to ensure you'll have enough ammo for the bosses when they come. Strategy and puzzle-solving are balanced out by many a boss battle and in between it all, slowly, Claire and Steve learn to work together to survive.

History

Steve's wikia is pretty thorough!

Personality

When we first meet Steve, he’s trying way too hard. As one of the last living people alive in the Rockfort Island Prison, he’s young and terrified and acts tough at Claire to cover it, which makes him come off as a brat -- an unpredictable gun-happy survivor who’s made it this far completely on his own and doesn’t think he needs anyone’s help. In truth, it's more that he doesn't trust anyone else's help after the scenario that landed him in a private prison to start with. Steve is angry about the fact he's here at all which makes him a hothead towards their captor, and due to the lack of trust he disregards Claire’s repeated offers to stay together until it becomes clear that they do need one another. Slowly, every time they save one another, Steve realizes he not only needs Claire, but likes her, and from then on his actions are far more predictable. He has to come to terms with his own shit so that he can protect her and survive himself, be an asset not a liability.

His father’s betrayal of the family (the only people he’s probably ever had steady contact with being his parents) leaves Steve extremely angry and vulnerable, thinking that he’s better off on his own. Claire is confused by his constant insistence that they should go it alone, that you can't trust or rely on others or you get into trouble. When he finally realizes this isn’t true and starts to let go of some of that baggage it leads to his desperately seeking approval from Claire. Once he accepts her as his fellow survivor he wants to look capable, but has such limited experience with people that his idea of being impressive is very macho action hero, which... just is not him. So he looks sort of like a doofus at first, taking on more than he can handle and getting himself into situations that make him panic and... look like more of a doofus! But when he settles down and is more comfortable being himself later in the game, you see the real Steve. He deserves the approval he was seeking but for different reasons -- he is extremely intelligent and versatile, able to repair massive machinery, fly planes, and use any weapon in the game. He undervalues all of that because he doesn’t think the real him is impressive enough on its own, relying instead on showmanship to impress her like jumping through a window several stories up to kill a monster attacking her, then using a cheesy line she just rolls her eyes at. Possibly this is just because he’s seventeen and still more than a little immature, or possibly it’s because his entire sheltered life was turned upside down when he became an Umbrella prisoner. As a prisoner, he feels alone and helpless, but the outbreak allows him to reassert some measure of control over his situation. He's pretty good at killing the monsters, and so defines or condemns himself by his successes and failures in that regard.

Although we see several times that Steve does not keep cool in a crisis, the worst of these instances is when he has to kill his zombified father, after which he’s open enough to cry in front of Claire. From this point we begin to learn that at his core Steve is a very emotional, loyal puppy of a boy who is more than capable of saving the day when he keeps his head. He’s also very brave when Claire is involved, doing absolutely anything to protect her. In fact, the most impressive and laudable thing about Steve is actually his strength of will to fight off the virus and the commands being given to him under Alexia’s influence (this strain has a “queen”) to hurt Claire. He sacrifices himself instead, and is able to fight off his mutations and successfully de-transform. He seems almost at peace as he dies, because he was finally able to become the person he wanted to be the whole game.

Through these progressions, by the end of the game he’s no longer trying too hard to be a hero; he actually becomes a hero. His strength isn’t in his guns but in his heart and once you have his loyalty, he will literally do the impossible for you.

Special Abilities

Steve is human in terms of natural abilities -- no super strength or speed or anything like that. He can use pretty much any firearm you put in his hands, operate and maintain/repair most vehicles, including construction equipment and airplanes. He’s in good shape, his hand to hand is decent, and he knows how to take a fall.

But! As discussed here, Steve is infected with the T-Veronica Virus at the end of the game and is taken juuuuust pre-death, so he will be infected in game. It's dormant right now but he'll have a certain amount of regeneration if fatally or critically injured, perhaps after mutating into a giant green monster! He can fight this off, especially without Alexia's influence, but it'll be fun times I'm sure. If the mods have any further restrictions or discussion on this (like if he'd have to die to reset the dormancy rather than just fight it off), please let me know! When mutated, the Steve!Monster has proportionate strength, claws, a prehensile tail, and can jump really high. but will not be able to mutate in game.



1. Population: You TDM starters & threads, one more

2. slice of life abounds in Eudio

3. fucked up murder games in The Box

It's been awhile since I had Steve in a game so if these are too old let me know and I can write up more new stuff!