Tommy Petersen
| Name: | Thomas Andrew Petersen |
| Nickname/Alias: | Tommy, TAP, Tom-Tom, Arachna-Guy, Andy, Mr. Positive, [Pleasantville] |
| Gender: | Cisgender Male |
| Sexuality: | Unknown |
| Age: | 22 as of 2019 |
| Height: | 5'10 |
| Ethnicity: | White Unovan of [Dutch], [Croatian], and [Dalmatian Italian] descent |
| Birthday: | 15 August 1997 |
| Attribute: | N/A |
| Trainer ID: | N/A |
| Home: | Castelia City, Unova |
| Pokéform: | N/A |
| Starter: | Tobi |
| Status: | Alive |
"Oh crap! Where's my super suit? This is the wrong back pack! Crap. What if it's still in the Stormchaser? Well, at least... Tobi... oh shit. Where's Tobi! Oh Arceus I'm on my own here"
Thomas Andrew Petersen, known as Tommy or very seldom Andy, is an Unovan photojournalist with the Geographic Society. He mostly provides content for its news magazine, The Geographer Weekly, with his main claim to fame is taking pictures of his alter-ego Arachna-Guy, the Spinarak/Ariados-themed crime-fighter who patrols the streets of Castelia City. He is the secondary PC of JG-Says-Things-And-Stuff.
Contents
Appearance
Tommy has brown hair, pale skin, and hazel-colored eyes. Standing at 1.78 meters tall, he looks like he was cloned from a sarcastic Hollywood Nerd template, a seemingly lanky young male with a fit athletic build typically hidden in layers of clothing and a friendly face that makes you think "how is this good-looking guy an unpopular nerd" (well, at least up until he opens his mouth). His first outfit as Arachna-Guy was a makeshift-looking suit colored after a shiny Ariados comprising of a hoodie, balaclava, and a pair of goggles. The same color scheme was adopted in the second suit, which is a glossy, armored form-fitting full body suit.
Personality
Awkward, adorkable, and annoying are the three words that describe little Tommy Petersen. Described as a good kid who's not quite dependable, the young lad often geeks out at the slightest provocation, quoting and referencing movies from the 80s like clockwork. Most people know him as the only photographer in The Geographer Weekly to consistently deliver clear (and incidentally very flattering) photos of the elusive superhero Arachna-Guy. He presents himself as an overenthusiastic Arachna-Guy fanboy and speaks praises of him constantly, which grates on a lot of people.
Part of his interest in the idea of Arachna-Guy may stem from his fondness for arachnid Pokemon. His starter is a Spinarak, Tobi, rescued from a Best Berry subsidiary laboratory involved in illegal experiments, and had worked alongside Professor Conroy Hawthorn in raising Kabutos in a facility at Castelia City University.
He lives with his Aunt April in Castelia, his cousin Sara, Sara's husband Jeff, and their daughter Miley.
Relationships
Both him and his alter-ego share a tenuous relationship with his boss, the former for dating his daughter Jane Stacy and the latter due to Hank's own doubts about the presence of superheroes, an idea that isn't as irrational as it would seem, or so he was told.
Shutter is one of the many friends he made at the Geographic Society and serves as an older brother figure and mentor. He also shares an almost familial relationship with Gimbal; she was later revealed to be his long-dead mother Stephania.
One of his superiors at the Kalos division, Jean, serves as a tertiary father figure, though there may be tensions between them as he and Jean's daughter share a mutual attraction.
Tommy is considered attractive by a few people; people who have developed a crush on him include Jean's daughter Catelyn, Flash Grant, Professor Hawthorn's daughter Stephanie, Jetta Sullivan, and Detective Shun Hontou. He was once in a romantic relationship with Jane, Hank's daughter.
He has become the immediate superior of Ivan, who recently became a Geographic Society intern.
He and Jonathan Halliburton are casual acquaintances, but until recently they've only ever talked in Kalosian and still barely know one another.
Silas was able to piece together Tommy's identity rather quickly and was willing to give him a much-needed upgrade. Tommy gets along well with Silas and he appreciates the efforts the latter went to create the suit. They share a relationship that's simultaneously cordial enough to be friendly but still distant enough to largely be professional.
Upton Braun subconsciously ate his lunch around ten times and they've shared a rather frienemy-ish relationship ever since.
Personal History
Original Timeline
Tommy Petersen was the son of writer couple Stanford and Stephania Petersen, known for their relatable written fiction and rather outspoken views. His middle name was a Galarization of his paternal grandfather's name, Andrei. He was orphaned at the age of five after his parents mysteriously died, which investigations later found to be linked to a Team Rocket agent who was once tutored by his uncle Ken. Ken, his father's younger brother, took him in.
One day, when he was 15 and played hooky while on a field trip to a Best Berry facility, he discovered an elaborate and cruel Spinarak silk-harvesting scheme. Sensing "hey, free Pokemon," he stole an oddly colored Spinarak, which proceeded to bite him. This led to a contrived chain of events that would lead to Uncle Ken being killed by robbers who were watching a movie. As he lay dying, he told Tommy something he couldn't remember but, to his recollection, may have involved responsibility and power somehow. He couldn't really tell because the Spinarak bite was acting up and Aunt April was crying, but what little he did remember was etched in his mind.
In grief, he buried himself in his chemistry textbooks and began reading his uncle's old comic books, becoming rather fixated with superheroes in the process. When the opportunity to get paid to take pictures of a mysterious vigilante came, he seized his chance. Also, he anonymously had the Spinarak ring busted.
Tommy, upon sending high-res images of the elusive Arachna-Guy to the Geographer Weekly's head honcho Hank Harvey, triggered the editor's fixation on finding the true motives of Castelia's new vigilante. This launched his career at the Geographic Society. He started as intern and later took on a part-time staff job at the Geographer Weekly. Shutter had been tasked with introducing him to the ropes of the publishing industry and ended up befriending him. The two get along well and treat each other as friends.
Tommy acquired a sleeker modern superhero suit from Silas during the Asimov Halloween Party in 2018.
Other Timelines
Lillifuture
Tommy's counterpart is known exclusively as Andrew (or Andy) in this timeline. Having long retired from being Arachna-Guy, he is presently the editor-in-chief of the Geographer Weekly. He had served as a paternal figure toward David Albright, who has issues with his own father. This relationship is said to recur in several other timelines.
His formal retirement was a result from an incident that led to a career-ending injury that gradually left him unable to use his lower legs. By the time of the Lillifuture's present, he is in a wheelchair. He reconciles with and wins over Hank Harvey and resumes his relationship with Jane. Together, they have two children, one who goes by their mutual first name (but is just called Junior) and another named after his father Stanford.
Dieselpunk Timeline
Thomas is an adventurer and archeology intern in an alternate timeline reminiscent of pulp stories from the 1930s. Not a superhero in this timeline, he was dragged into the main timeline during April Fool's Day due to spacetime rifts and is at present stuck there as a faller. Prior, he was in the process of protecting a sacred Horonjin artifact from the hands of tomb robbers.
Ectoplasma Guy's Timeline
Tommy is alluded to as a younger editor of the Geographic Society, where he has come into conflict with Ectoplasma-Guy (an alternate Hank Harvey).
Personal Details
- Tommy is multilingual. He can speak fluent Kalosian and has picked up [Cebuano], [Japanese], and [Serbo-Croat] to some degree.
- He doesn't pitch that well otherwise but is an expert at mallet tossing.
- He and Shutter were taught Monese by the same professor at the same collegiate program, albeit at different times in different universities.
- His style of investigative journalism often involves staking out individuals from rather uncomfortable or unpleasant spaces, notably dumpsters.
- He is resourceful to an unusual degree; he once sent a singing telegram to find a J-Team staff member when he couldn't personally deliver a message.
- He is remarkably skilled in crafting and has an eye for detail; he once created a convincing, authentic replica of the Ghost Lord's armor out of plastic pieces.
- Tobi bit him in the lower left arm. The bite left a lasting injury and he can still be hurt if enough force was applied to that region.
- He gets his middle name (Andrew) from the Galaricized version of his grandfather's given name (Andrej).
- He is asthmatic.
- Tommy hosts Learner Lab, a wacky science web show for the Geographic Society targeted at a child, pre-teen, and adolescent audience.
- He has recently been revealed to be an unskilled psychic, which explains at least some of the abilities (including his ability to sense danger).
- At least four people are known to address him by the name "Andy," derived from his middle name. One of those happens to be Dave from the Lillifuture. "Tom-Tom" is the nickname given to him by his cousin Sara. "Mr. Positive" is a nickname given to him by Shutter for being ridiculously upbeat and positive (originally, it was a snide retort about generally being that "always someone better"). Galen gave him the nickname [Pleasantville] partly for the same reasons and partly because he thought Tommy looked somewhat like [Tobey Maguire] in that movie.
- He is capable of analyzing the chemical makeup of many things based on taste alone. Over the course of his lifetime, he has tasted and licked things that humans are usually not meant to put in their mouths. How this managed to not kill him is unknown.
- He had apparently kept the same specific haircut for 20 years before finally switching to a new one on February 14, 2021.
Tommy's Pokémon
Original Timeline
On Hand
Family Pet
Dieselpunk Timeline
Trivia
- Tommy (and Arachna-Guy) is a not-so-subtle expy of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and began as a one-off gag in JG's signup test. His personality and appearance is heavily based on Tom Holland's take on the character, albeit with a similar dress sense to Andrew Garfield's. Elements of other prior and subsequent Spider-Men (Jake Johnson, Tobey Maguire, Drake Bell, etc.) occasionally pop up.
- Tommy's full name is an amalgam of two actors (Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield) who played Peter Parker, plus the name Petersen, modified from the signup test's Peterson.
- Tommy being partly of [Dutch American] descent is itself a reference to Tom Holland's toponymic surname, which comes from two Dutch regions.
- Most of the people and mons connected to Tommy are lampoons of Spider-Man-related characters
- Tommy's pokémon are all named for actors who played Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire, Shinji Tōdō, and Drake Bell), save for Felicia, who is based on Black Cat.
- Although Tommy's Aunt and Uncle are spoofs of Uncle Ben and Aunt May, his parents are based on the late creators of Spider-Man, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
- His cousin's daughter is named after Miles Morales.
- His cousin is named for the co-creator of Miles Morales, Sara Pichelli.
- His cousin's husband Jeff is named for Terry Jeffords from Brooklyn 99 but fills a similar role to Jefferson Davis (Miles' father) from Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.
- Parker Netherlands, a celebrity that resembles Tommy physically, is the WAAPT analogue for IRL Tom Holland. His name was derived from the same nominal scrambling that led to Tommy's name.
- Prior to the Halloween upgrade, his super-suit was patterned after the makeshift suit worn by Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Marvel's Spider-Man.
- Tommy's birthday corresponds to the release of the first Spider-Man story in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was published on August 1962.
- A version of him wearing a scarf, fedora, a 90s plaid shirt, and circular sunglasses is called "Anachro-Guy," although this is not a superhero identity.
- The dieselpunk version of Tommy, Thomas, is a send-up to Spider-Noir from Into the Spider-Verse; however, he is functionally similar to Indiana Jones (especially the younger version of him stemming from the TV series) with elements of Milo Thatch, the main character from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, mixed in.
- Porker is based on Spider-Ham.
- The discrepancy between the spelling of his name both IRP (Petersen) and in the signup test (Peterson) is referenced by giving Tommy two coworkers with similar sounding names that are merely spelled differently.
- Jerry is named as a Tom and Jerry reference, an ironic one that proved necessary because of his trainer's name.
