Venice

"“I don’t need a skull to be ignored by cute girls, so I don’t see any reason to let that hold me back.”"Venice is a Headless Man who lives on the Five-Star Coast. He works as Maja’s bodyguard, and despite being loyal to her, harbours no ill will towards the other warlords or their followers. Venice is a friendly but somewhat shy man who often finds himself flustered around attractive women; as a result, he’s known as the heart of the Church of Worms. Though his friends know him as a genuine, kind person, he sometimes struggles with strangers, who often perceive him to be far more frightening than he is.

Vita
Venice is notable for being the only Headless Man associated with the Church of Worms, and one of only a few with any sort of public presence at all. His execution has shaped a fair amount of his personality and views on himself. It is both a sign of power and a weakness for him, and by extension, for his allies and associates as well.

Venice was born in Former-Capital Peak, naturally gifted in telekinesis since a very young age. He was neither encouraged nor discouraged from developing these abilities by his family, as a happy medium between drawing unwanted attention to them and potentially stunting them. As a result, he simply allowed them to form as they did, and they became powerful, but not out of control. He only had a small social circle as a child and kept out of the eyes of the authorities as much as possible.

For the most part, this worked, until he was arrested as a young teen with his delinquent friend Isles. The two were caught exploring an abandoned power plant on the outskirts of the city and interrogated. While Isles was let go, Venice was kept in juvenile detention and soon decapitated to cull his powerful but benign ability. He was returned to his family, but found he was unable to reintegrate into society, and was sent to live with an aunt in the significantly more liberal Five-Star Coast.

Venice spent the first year shut away and unable to function socially, uncomfortable with himself and anxious around everyone else. He had lost his family, his friends, his sense of self, and his power - until he found that the latter wasn't true. He discovered on his own that the decapitation had failed and that, even as a Headless Man, he still retained the telekinetic ability he'd developed when he was younger. Out of spite and desperation to make something of this, he began actively training it, and eventually became competent enough to be able to put it to use. He took a job (while still a teenager) as a bouncer at Panic Room, and stayed there for several years. He didn't have many friends or connections with the "daytime" world; though he was satisfied with his work, he was still lonely and often felt empty and unfulfilled.

Eventually, Venice met Maja, who was just getting her feet wet in her newfound warlord position at the time. She offered him a better paying job as a hitman (as she was desperate for new staff), and he accepted, more for the opportunity to meet more people than for the money. As they became better friends, he expressed he would be more comfortable doing a job less directly violent, and was instead promoted to her personal bodyguard. He stayed in this position through the beginning of her conflict with Darling, through her various crusades to arm and militarize the public against the violent gentrification of the area, and remained with her in her decision to ally with Duke McNamara.

As a member of the Church of Worms, Venice is still mainly in service of Maja. However, he has broadened his horizons and often escorts other members on their various excursions and missions. Like all Church members, he also assists Duke in caring for the patients when he has time, and currently lives in the upper part of the hospital.

Personality
Externally, Venice is a very kind, well-intentioned man. He is known both among the Church of Worms and Maja’s other associates as a sweet and genuine person, and those who don’t outright fear him generally respect or look up to him. However, he’s also rather shy and sometimes lets his emotions get the better of him, leading him to step out of situations where he may be useful (to Maja’s occasional annoyance.) In particular, he is hyper-aware of how people view him, constantly comparing the stigma around Headless Men to the way he perceives his interactions with others. While he’s more openly social than Jetta, he suffers from an opposing form of social anxiety to hers: instead of fearing strangers who are bigger or more powerful than him, he often worries about intimidating smaller and weaker people.

This bashfulness is compounded by his romantic ideals, which tend to dictate his actions and much of his persona. Venice is largely driven by the search for love, and very often falls for people he’s become comfortable with. Yet, the anxiety surrounding his status and appearance keeps him from approaching potential lovers or confessing his feelings, so he instead holds those feelings in until they eventually burn him out. As a result, despite his optimism towards the future and the world around him, he has a lower opinion of himself than his friends have of him - a lower opinion than most know he holds, given how outwardly cheerful he seems.

Venice rarely has negative thoughts about people other than himself. He is the first to forgive and forget, and is happy to provide support to those who need it. He doesn’t like to overthink things (though he does it anyway, in regards to his own reputation) and prefers to aim for solutions that don’t hurt anyone. When he does get angry, he’ll handle it by keeping to himself until the loneliness and desire to be around people eventually drives out the anger. He’s more prone to embarrassment than most, as well. Luckily, his lack of a face means that casual acquaintances are unlikely to pick up on these feelings (though close friends are quicker to notice.) All in all, Venice is a gentle soul who may be too hard on himself for a victimhood he couldn’t have prevented, and hopes to eventually overcome this self-consciousness in order to properly pursue true love.

Appearance
Even without his head, Venice is a very tall, imposing man with a large, muscular build. Though it’s difficult to measure a proper height for him, he does claim that he would be slightly taller than Ego if he still had a head, which would make him around 6’6” - 6’7”, and the tallest member of the Church of Worms overall. He has light skin with some light freckles on his shoulders and arms, and had coppery hair and greyish eyes as a child. While photos of him before his decapitation do exist, he was actually a small, mousy child in direct contrast to his adult appearance, so it’s difficult to tell what his face would have looked like as an adult.

Venice has no other body horror or notable disfigurements aside from his clean-cut decapitation. The wound on his neck has a thin, clear, slightly sticky membrane over it to prevent from excessive bleeding, though he is known to drip a little bit from time to time. His wardrobe isn’t particularly flashy. He does sometimes use hoods and masks (the physics of which are unclear) to avoid being recognized as Maja’s bodyguard while off the clock in public, however. His colour palette is mostly mellow blues, to complement Maja‘s muted reds and Jetta’s vibrant yellows.

Relationships
Maja - Venice’s relation with his employer is a friendly one, and he has made it clear that it would take more than just a better-paying opportunity for him to change loyalties. She has little (if any) trouble understanding his unspoken intentions and concerns without facial expressions, and is the first to pick up on and tease him for his various new crushes. In situations like strategy meetings, she often has to speak for him as she does for Jetta. In Venice’s case, this is less about a fear of speaking in general and more to do with his ideas not being taken seriously coming from a Headless Man.

Jetta - Venice and Jetta talk significantly less. Though he’s tried to help her with her nerves in the past, they found that it was difficult for her to get past his frightening appearance even when she knew he wasn’t a threat. Their relationship is awkward and strained, but they do make an effort to get along as well as they can, and he greatly respects her pragmatic strategies.

Duke - Like many associates in the Church, Duke is the first doctor Venice found himself able to fully trust regarding his disfigurement. In his case, though Duke didn’t have much experience in dealing with Headless Men, they were able to work out a treatment/hygiene system with Duke’s limited medical supplies. In addition, Duke is more than willing to be a bro when Venice needs it, and likewise, Venice dedicates a fair amount of his time to protecting and volunteering at the hospital.

Azh - Azh and Venice’s relationship got off to a rocky start. While he was almost immediately taken with her wit and life experience, she found him to be offputting and hurt his feelings rather severely in deliberately avoiding him. She apologized after realizing she’d done so, and their friendship formed slowly over a long period of time. At the current point, they’re relatively close - not more with each other than they are with their own professional associates, but enough to have formed a watertight mutual trust at least.

Darling - Venice does not hold any sort of grudge against Darling, and believes that he’s a truly good person despite Darling’s views opposing those of Maja, his employer. Darling believes this claim to be either a lie or dangerously idealistic, and expresses that Venice ought to be more cynical if he wants to keep both his job and his life. Oddly, Venice disagrees but doesn’t mind the sentiment.