Ira Welles-Tyler

The Sparhawk

30

Agender (he/him, doesn't mind they/them but he genuinely just does not care)

Ira Fitzgerald Welles-Tyler

Sparhawk, Specter, Ghost...the list goes on. Sparhawk is his preferred calling card but the others are used to refer to him too.

Himself

(The) Sparhawk

American Nothing

Ira

Watchful One

Eye-ruh

Fitzgerald

Son of Gerald

Fitz-jair-uld

Welles-Tyler

Lives By the Spring--Maker of Tiles

Wells--Tie-ler

Human (white)

Slim build with some muscle, average height.

A bit below average

Light, some freckles

5'9"

Red-orange

Grey

Unkempt and overlong, fairly straight.

Occasionally some stubble, especially if he's recently taken a hit to the jaw. He doesn't like to shave if there's a particularly tender bruise or an open-ish cut, but unlike Joey Puglisi , who almost always a 5 o'clock shadow, Ira is generally clean-shaven (and since Ira can't take as many hits as Joey, he's gotten better at dodging them)

Slight to heavy limp (depends on the day and amount of physical exertion)--he broke his leg when he was in his mid-20s and never got it professionally treated.

Less gravelly than one would expect based on his overall vibe. Medium-pitch and fairly flat as far as tone, usually a bit raspy from lack of use.

Glasses, usually has some sort of scarring, bruising, or bandage across his face. When in costume, he wears a mask across the lower half of his face to avoid recognition.

Ira is...someone who takes a lot of getting used to. He idolized the League as a child but never manifested the powers necessary to get in. A string of familial tragedies drove him deeper into his desperation to join: first a drunk driver killing his father, and then the attack on his family's apartment complex that killed almost all of the League, as well as many tenants. He persistently reapplied and got shot down, and eventually just sent in a letter that said "So be it--Sparhawk it is."
Social interaction is not his strong suit and he finds himself confused by people more often than not. This confusion leads to embarrassment, which in turn is a snake-eating-its-tail situation where Ira eschews social interaction in fear of making an embarrassing faux pas, which in turn makes him more of an outcast.Thinks he doesn't need anyone and that even if he did need somebody, why bother? They'd just die anyways. Very aware of his social surroundings, especially the noise level, but not always aware of how he's perceived.
Sparhawk, Specter, Ghost--whatever alias people are calling him--is among the most prominent of the vigilante heroes, but he wouldn't call himself a hero. In his mind, he's just doing what the League won't, however accurate he actually is is up to debate. Very sensitive to loud noises, bright lights, and touch. Determined to an absolute fault. Ira will not give up, even if doing so would save him time, energy, and pain. At times it can feel like he's blindered himself to the point where it isn't even an option, and this inability to know when to run from a fight has led to several injuries, most of which he doesn't let properly heal.

Stands very still, to the point where he's easily overlooked. Tight jaw, often grinds his teeth. Wary gaze. He's not used to working with others and so he has a tendency to either A) mutter under his breath in a way that only makes sense to him or B) just jump headfirst into something with no explanation, often after standing in dead silence for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute. He has a very intense gaze, if you ever meet it, and if you're facing down Sparhawk in a fight, expect a Kubrick Stare to come your way.
Ira has a distinct way of speaking (when he speaks at all) where a lot of sentences, intentionally or not, pitch up at the end like they're questions. His voice is otherwise fairly monotone. He doesn't talk very much, especially around people he doesn't know, and tends to have an unusual way of affecting his words. Another notable thing about Ira is that, for lack of a better phrase, he tends to drop words when talking (something especially noticeable when he's in costume as Sparhawk)--he speaks in a very clipped and concise way.
Ira could not quite be called selectively mute as his mutism is not solely in response to a trigger, but there are times where he has an inability to speak, whether due to sensory overload or not. When this happens, he communicates via writing. He also knows a bit of ASL, but it doesn't always help in these situations if the people around him don't know it.

Agility, climbing (especially before his leg injury). As a child, he was the two-time local spelling bee champion, which isn't important overall but he kept the medals for it.

At his core, Ira just wants to do what he thinks is right. He has a very strong moral compass and fierce convictions. To him, the League rejecting his applications was a grievous wrong, and so he continues his vigilante work out of a mixture of genuine desire to better the world and spite.

Demiromantic

Asexual

Capricorn

ISTJ (Logistician)

Chess, reading (nonfiction and mysteries). Used to play the flute. Freelance vigilante work.

Antisocial, stubborn, independent and determined to a fault. A mix of being overly aware of his surroundings and oblivious to the way people act around him, especially as a child. He's actually quite measured, but comes off as reckless when he's working with a group since they can't see the internal thought process that leads him to his decisions and just see him jumping from a rooftop onto a car or something like that.

Hates the League and anyone associated with it, although he will not try to hurt League heroes or anything like that.
When it comes to his vigilante work, he hones his focus in on specific types of criminals: corrupt officials and sex criminals.

Autism, mild PTSD

His medals--two-time spelling bee champion for the state of Wisconsin. He still clings to them to this day.

Joey Puglisi
Mabel Brell

Hawks

Generally uses a Bowie knife, but has a variety of weapons that he's stashed in either his apartment or safe-boxes across the city.

"Freelance detective".

Doesn't label himself politically and never got registered to vote (he also doesn't have a driver's license). Probably would describe himself as an anarchist if pressed, and is pro anything that helps the working class and homeless/unemployed.

Raised Jewish, but now is fully apathetic to religion.

Grey

Honey mustard, either as a sauce for something or as a flavoring. He also drinks a copious amount of coffee, but he has to order it black and put the stuff in himself for it to be good.

Ira had a moderately okay upbringing. Going off the current canon timeline, he grew up in the 90s, when there wasn't a great understanding of autism and thus struggled a lot in school. He had his niche subjects that he was good at (spelling, geography, anatomy) but anything that didn't capture his interest he got middling to failing grades in. He was an outcast among his peers due to what he'd later figure out were symptoms of autism--his extreme aversions to touch, loud noises, bright lights, and eye contact, his rarely or oddly affected speaking. He also struggled a lot in social situations and had a difficult time picking up on social cues or coded language.
When he was 11, his dad died in a car accident and his mother remarried shortly after--and had a baby a few months later. Naturally this kicked up a lot of scandal within the family, and Ira's father's side of the family almost completely cut ties. Ira couldn't figure out why everyone cared so much--after all, what was so bad about a new baby sibling?--until his older sister took him aside and explained to him that babies take nine months to be born and that this baby was born five months after the wedding. From that point on, he developed a deep interest in cataloging and tracking dates. Despite this, he didn't really resent his stepfather and the two were decently close. The family moved to a new apartment complex...the same one that would be ambushed in an attack to draw out the League when he was in his mid-teens. Ira was saved by the superhero Venus, who saw him hiding under a small table in the hallway and ordered him to leave, compelling him via her power. As Ira left, his legs moving without him even trying to compel them, he caught a glimpse of the rest of his family for only a brief second before they disappeared, the floor giving way and a beam collapsing from the ceiling. He wanted to go back for them but couldn't until he had reached safety as Venus instructed him to. As soon as it wore off, Ira bolted for the smoldering building, evading a cop and punching another in the nose, but he was soon restrained and forcibly sedated.
Family-less and homeless, Ira sent his sixth letter into the League, begging for a position, and was shot down again. This time, however, he didn't take it sitting down, and he decided to become a vigilante instead, donning the moniker Sparhawk and taking off to fight crime in the city's streets.
His career has been...decent? He hasn't stopped any antagonists as powerful as Fryght and he doesn't pursue people who do petty theft or anything relatively small like that, but he's foiled at least one would-be serial killer and two would-be rapists. He's also gotten his fair share of scrapes, namely when he tried to evade a group of mobsters (he believed there would be only one, as opposed to many) by jumping from a window and broke his leg. He never got it professionally set, instead opting to splint it and try to sleep it off since it wasn't too severe of a break.

December 30th

Mary Welles and Adam Tyler

Art image credit to PotatoLord's Persona Creator picrew by PotatoLord, it's amazing and I highly recommend it!

I usually don't do animal motifs since I do a lot of SFF and I don't want to open the can of worms of describing someone as "like a bear" or whatever in a setting where they don't exist. That being said, Ira is frequently associated with cats, moths, and hawks.

https://www.pinterest.com.mx/ZooeySpring/ira-welles-tyler/

• 6up 5oh Cop-Out (Pro/Con) (although it works as well for Joey Puglisi ) by Will Wood.
  
  
  • Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity I am not typing the whole title, sorry by Will Wood.
    Specifically the refrain "you'll never take me alive...you'll never take me, you better pray that I die!" sums up his mentality to his work very well
  
  
  
  


• BlackBoxWarrior--OKUltra by--you guessed it!--Will Wood, especially the psychiatrist bit since he's been the patient end of some unhelpful ones before. It's one of those songs where the more I think about the lyrics the more I go "oh that reminds me of Ira".