Vix the S̶c̶a̶m̶m̶e̶r̶ Merchant

Vix is a fennec shifter with a penchant for scamming and sucking up to anyone with power. Once a champion-in-training, they’re now a relatively successful merchant. Although they behave morally reprehensibly, it seems to hide a vulnerability they are unwilling to show almost anyone.

The only thing Vix cares for is themself at the end of the day. What matters most is their success, their fortune, their safety. They have very little combative magic, and while agile, severely lack strength. In a world with god-blessed champions and demons, they're seemingly nothing. They know this more than anyone else, and as such, they seek power through different means. If one can't have raw strength, then what about wealth? The world is peaceful enough and eventually, the need for champions to save the day will end, but commerce certainly won't (and if it did, well, there'd be much more pressing matters at hand then). 

It doesn't matter if they have to appeal to a rotten system they loathe if it means attaining their goal. They'll suck up to anyone if needed, because at the end of the day, what's the point of dying for your beliefs, or even suffering for them? What's the use of dignity if you're less than dirt to people? 

Wealth and connections are the armor that protects the little fennec from something they refuse to acknowledge. They skirt the line between a scummy scammer and a surprisingly earnest merchant, changing sides as often as they change their form. 

Anyways, everyone say hi to Vix, the protagonist of this yet to be named story. I have some ideas, but we're in the works haha (if anyone has any fun ideas for titles themed around clocks, sand/hourglasses, or pendulums, let me know LOL)

Vix goes by any pronouns regardless of presentation. You'll usually see me default to they/them to make things clearer in writing in the scenario that I talk about them and other characters, however please feel free to use any pronouns at any given time for them. They're both all about physicality and absolutely lack any personal connection to it. Like, they're intimately aware of their body, but also see it more like a tool (a lot to unpack there with their background). To be fair, if you had the ability to shapeshift to some degree, you'd also have a different relationship to the body and gender. They've got a very good level of control over it too so even though they're not really able to transform into an animal form very well beyond the full little fennec fox form, they can do some very nuanced adjustments to their human form, including a change in sex. There's a lot of mixing and matching and subtle adjustments they do to always use their body to their advantage. It's a weird mix of taking back their autonomy while also objectifying themself.

I'm sure you can see that Vix is a bit of a conundrum to say the least. Nothing about them is very easy to explain. They end up in a very muddled gray area and it's been a bit of a struggle to do the balancing act of making sure you know their actions are morally reprehensible at times, but also to acknowledge they're not inherently a bad person either. Ideally, I'd like them to be loveably trashy, but who knows how well I'll do that. I'm afraid to pull my punches, but I'm also afraid to make things so murky that they become entirely unsypathetic. I especially don't want the antagonists/other characters to be a crutch so that they're just "the better option" of the bunch. Making the main character a participant in capitalism and, to a minor extent, imperialism, is not ideal when you're vehemelty against that yourself LOL. It's okay, at least he's not a landlord. Honest to god don't know what I'd do in that situation.