Joplin

### Relatives

Carrie Howell (mother), Casimir Howell (mother), Romulus (older brother), Eugene (older brother), Marie (older sister), Flint (younger brother), some other dumb bastards that never got named

## Physical description

### Species

Golden Silk Orb Weaver (Nephila Clavipes)

### Eye color

8

**Joplin** (birth name Sufjan Howell) is one of five main characters in Anthromalia. He's ultimately a little deviant, but by his own free will. Infected with cordyceps at a young age, the concept of consequences has missed him as he commits petty crime because he can and because it's fun. He really does just do things because he can.

### Appearance

Joplin is a manlet who appears tall when isolated but is actually shorter than every other character but Matilda. His physical build is lanky but a bit on the fit side, his primary fur color is white when he remembers to actually shower. As with all spiders, he has multiple eyes which are conveniently hidden by hair/his hood because they're annoying to draw, along with two pedipalps on his snout. His back, face and shoulders are covered in black spots and on each joint of his main three arms sprout "spider arm pom-poms".

He has several tattoos, one on his face/neck that reads "D.O.A", another at the base of his neck which says "CUT HERE" with a dotted line, as well as a tramp stamp he got while passed out. It just says "SAY YES TO CRACK" which, the joke doesn't work because his spider-tail-thing covers his ass but you know what, whatever--

### Personality

Joplin is impulsive, and many of his actions generally have effects he doesn't conceptualize beforehand. Being a spider in a zone with many people who don't have his movement capabilities has given him somewhat of a God Complex; he thinks he's effectively untouchable, and takes unnecessary risks as a result. That being said, he still desires platonic love, the sort that he never effectively felt growing up in affluence. He expresses this by joining Rosaleigh's movement, and quickly forms a friendship with her. Ultimately, he desires to get the most out of his time left, legally or otherwise. (It's like, mostly otherwise. Overwhelmingly otherwise.)

## Cordyceps

Central to Joplin's character is his chronic infection of the Cordyceps mushroom, which he inherited from his father at 14 years old. He would sneak in to Casimir's room and spend time with him, who wasn't able to refuse due to the fungus addling his brain. Doctors said there wasn't a way he'd live five years, and it's unclear if the many drugs he's taken have fought back the mushrooms any. Faced with the odds that he may die, or even worse: be left a mindless husk, he's turned to make friends out of the immune aquatic invertebrates of District 3, and cause a little chaos along the way.

### Trivia

* The name Joplin comes from the Gorillaz song, The Joplin Spider. His birth name is taken from Sufjan Stevens while his "street name", Prince, is a Deftones song. Basically he has a lot of fucking names

* His design is actually based on the female Nephila clavipes instead of the male, it's been chalked up to a slightly common birth defect among species with sexual dimorphism present but in reality it's because the artist was an actual dumbass

* Oh also he used to be female in the first version of Anthromalia, forgot to mention that. Her only personality trait was Dying, instead of current Joplin whose traits are Dying and Crackhead