Too much "Might"....
Mr. Mighty is decient golden age...
His neice and sidekick: Golden Girl, Kate Powers
Her boyfriend: The Rocket
Mild love interest-cum-antagonist to Mighty: Titania
and, the tough, edgy one: mechanic, Ladybird Rojas
Mighty is our brick... early/mid 30's and a knight in shiny armor if there ever was on
His neice is part 50's teen, part Jezabel... getting into trouble, but always ariving to a brady bunch style solution.
The Rocket is All about the chicks, especially his gal, Katie. Hes got greaser hair and fancies himself a rebel (he's got himself a motor cycle)
Titania is a brick, but uses telekenetic force of will to keep her safe from harm, she and Mighty have chemestry, but shes a woman who wants to stand equal in a mans world, and keeps babbling on and on about her "rights". Mr. Mighty's sympathetic, but he doesnt quite understand what the big deal is, but when he find out who keeps "discriminating" on her, hes gonna pound their faces in.
and Ladybird, shes from the wrong side of the tracks... being part of the team, first as their mechanic, then as a full fledged member when she makes her Powered-Exo (a skeletal framework she wears over her shoulders and arms, with a visor to protect her face, and boots that let her fly).. gives her a chance to escape from her oppressive homelife and impossible working conditions as a female mechanic.
a little more "thematic" that way... without being hamfisted about it.
Heh, I definitely agree. Which is why I put in the disclaimer that I'm better at finding holes and helping fill them in than creating it whole-cloth.
I'm assuming the Rocket would be primarily a flyer, using aerial combat maneuvers (mostly charges and move throughs from unexpected angles)?
Born out of the Cuban missle era comes...MEGATON, a living atomic explosion encased in a lumbering protective suit. Think Bigdaddy! Strictly monitored status.
From the 50's B era...MENTO, an alien (think Leader/Sinestro) proficient in all forms of mental combat. Reports directly to Area 51 where he was first taken after he was rescued/discovered, has the highest government clearance, almost never seen not levitating...and secretly believes himself to be superior to the human race.
I'll let these simmer for a bit.
Slightly confused. Were these just meant as examples, or did you want the team built around these two core members?
From the 50's B era...MENTO, the unofficial leader of the group. An alien and expert in all forms of mental combat. Reports directly to Area 51 where he was first taken after he was discovered, has the highest government clearance, longs for the teams female member...and secretly despises humanity.
UltraNationalist (or some derivation) would be the symbolic figurehead (I've gone as far as to imagine him with NO powers, only there to put a handsome face on an otherwise questionable looking team) and "official" leader of the group.
...Actually, these characters were to be members of a team called The MIGHTIES, but the story that's shaping up in my head seems like the antithesis of that name.
Herm...basic rundown is all I have for this character right now.
Corvus Coridae - the raven
The premise in and of itself being, she's a "memory" of herself that spawns when her past self is dreaming.
What's going on is that in the past there is a girl who, whenever she dreams, a version of herself is manifested in the future. The cause o this was that she used to have a sleeping insomnia disorder that caused her to not dream, but an event changed her. The first dream she ever saw, she watched herself die in the future. Ever since then, whenever she sleeps, she manifests in the future after she had died as a raven, eventually becoming the entity Corvus Coridae.
I need to think it over a bit more and explain it a bit, but that's the concept I want to base it on.
Religious, magical or philosophical? Or, is it just a mutation that was latent until her first dream?
Was her physical form somehow displaced into the past, making her "dream" form a memory held by the timeline? I'm assuming the dream form will be her only manifestation in the game, in order to avoid the confusion of time jumps?
Just a few quick questions to help give a direction.
So, is she going to be a Harbinger of Death type? A form of vengeance for the dead, avenging murders? A muse that revives/revitalizes lost and dying dreams? Sorry, I'm just trying to tie in the lore and the only lore I know involving corbies is their involvement with death and the battlefield.
Hrm. Dreams and Death usually mean nightmares and/or warnings. Is she going to carry a warning to potential murder victims, or try to protect them?
Wait, how far in the past was her physical form?
The reason I ask is that I'm thinking she was in Detroit when it was destroyed. Her dream-self now "haunts" (for lack of a better term) the new Millenium City, trying to ensure that such death on a massive scale now revisits it. Being the dream-image of her own soul and the manner of her death could give her the spiritual ties to the raven and crow you're looking for. In addition to being harbingers of death, corbies were seen as ill omens so she could be an omen to evil doers and a balm to the souls of the righteous as she aids them in passing over while a pointed bit of foreshadowing to the souls of slain evil as she takes them to their final punishments.
i would say that her powers manifested by outside sources....
i think of it like "sliding doors"... where one event utterly changes her fate.... for good or evil.
Being a particular type of insomniac, her unlikely dreams were believe to be portents for the future... oracle-like.
a group (technological, mystic, religious, etc) abducts the child, and attempts to use these fortune tellings to predict future events (ala paycheck)
the experement succeeds in the past, but not in the way the organization hopes... The child, while awake becomes a doomsayer, able to see pitfalls and dangers... and in the past, until now, the organization has used that ability to ammass a shadowy empire of crime and corruption....
...but in her dreams, she becomes Corvus Corvidae, the Raven... a clever and wise trickster determined to overthrow the Doomsayer and the Organization that controls her.
In essense... a story about the Spiritual goodness of a person fighting against the penultimate version of their evil nature (for, in the present, Corvus Corvidae's human form still exists... as the Oracle of this organization... decadent and corrupt... evil as her masters.)
Eeh, I was actually thinking along the lines of being a displaced spiritual guide.
The relations I wanted to tie her to was with the crows being known as life givers and caretakers of humanity coupled with ravens being known as guides for the dead to the afterlife. Didn't actually want to represent her personality as a traditionally morbid type character, more of a pained optimist.
The thing about seeing her own death was to kinda try and produce the same situation as might be done by witnessing another close one's death. I also wanted the event to be relatively obscure for her so there's still a sense of wonder of confusion about it to be that she's looking to solve the mystery of her own death.
As for tying in the corvus stuff, i was relating her to the genus of corvus in general due to the idea that as spiritual protectors there was something unnatural about her death which they are trying to solve. The whole thing about the insomnia is supposed to be that effect too as it's an unnatural state of being.
Guess it might be helpful to say my inspiration comes somewhat from things like The Jacket. So thinking of it more like what's going on there is what I want a parallel to.
never saw it... was told it was a Jacob's ladder update, and never had any impulse to dig deeper.
lets be frank, Mony..... you usually have a clear idea of your character in your head... what you lack is a way to get the concept into a "story form".... you like the "technical" aspects of your characters, how they tick.... and this seems like another "alien to humanity" set up your at.
personally... I think that you're way too far into the realm of the Crow to justify so much thought.... basically your making a really complicated and obscure sort of background, for a character that, in practice, is all but indistinguishable from an existing character. (baring the optimism angle, anyway)
I hadnt heard of ravens being known as guides to the afterlife.... what cultures thought that?
usually their either related to bad things (the souls of someone who was murdered or the damned) Ill omens and the like....
or they're wise, crafty/clever... sometimes gods, sometimes simple animals bestowed with supernatural powers (sight or hearing)
That's mostly western thoughts on the corvus genus you have there. The mentioning of ravens being guides for the afterlife actually is a somewhat outdated Japanese lore tradition.
Pretty much the most common relations I think people know for the corvus genus is the Native American lore and the European lore. There's quite a bit of older Asian lore about these guys though that just isn't circulated anymore, mostly because it's a theology that's no longer supported in just about any way and instead got close to stomped out by monotheism.
I'm kinda trying to move away from the commonly thought of western beliefs because they have a lot of preconceived notions about them, as you illustrated, and trying to move towards the personality of the beliefs that have fallen out of favor, mostly because at this point it would be more fresh and unique rather than another run of the mill person in black out to avenge.
I want her death and the seeking of resolution of her death to be a factor yes, but not all who want to solve a murder (even their own) have to be out looking to stomp out crime in a pseudo-gothy anti-hero style. Would much rather take on the role of protector and guide than avenger and morbid emo. She should be sad and confused about her death, but resolved enough to solve it and move on, trudge onward with a known variable and make the best of what you have more or less. I would like her to look the traditional role of the corvus genus, yes, but as i said in no way does that mean I want it to be a traditional western lore concept.
Think I have a hard time making any character that's "human". Humanity isn't something I've ever logically been fond of being related to, mostly because the vast amount of oddities and issues I've come to understand that are derived from some very simple mechanics that one would hope a species that touts it's intelligence above others would be capable of solving. Alas, it's basically against our nature to do some of the things required to solve most our basic issues.
I was actually aiming for this character to be a part of the mythology pantheon guild forming up, which is why I was trying to keep a strong association with the corvus genus.
As for the Jacket, it's apparently referenced as "Jacob's Ladder meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", though I still rather like the concept. Another comparison might be a 12 Monkeys situation with her spirit jumping forward while she sleeps instead of going to the past to fulfill a time line.
Another source you might check would be the book it's based on, The Star Rover (published as The Jacket in the UK)
Never even heard of the movie or the book, though that's not surprising.
I have heard of ravens as the guides to the afterlife before, but it was in a fantasy book that seemed loosely based on the celtic/norse mythos and was the only source so didn't realize it wasn't made up (not that strong on anything outside of Greek mythology...and nothing obscure there heh).
The displaced spiritual guide concept sort of throws a wrench in what you'd said before, though. If a spirit guide were to be born into human flesh, why the insomnia? When it's cured, why would the dreams be a Cassandra-syndrome retake?
Hrm...one of the spriitual ravens grew disenchanted with its role as a protector and guide with humanity as it watched human interactions for centuries. In fact, it grew somewhat jealous and decided to take human form to experience the world as humans do.
At this point, you have two options. It took the form of your character while she was still in the womb, basicly stealing the body and displacing the unborn childs own soul. Or, it took the form of one of her parents and was trapped in that form/refused to leave it until its family died.
If it displaced the childs soul, then that gives you your present-form character. The soul didn't die when displaced, but did grow up outside of the body and was taught by the rest of the spirit ravens. The insomnia was from the fact that the raven-soul within the body didn't dream. The Cassandraesque prophecy dreams were a result of the human soul trying to send warnings to the human realm in order to avert the disasters. When these didn't move the raven in the stolen body to help, she showed it the body's death. The raven stll didn't help and upon the death of the body instead of being freed as it expected, its consciousness was destroyed and its spiritual energy was given to the disembodied soul, along with the responsibilities it had neglected.
If one of the parents, the child was simply the inheritor of the ravens spiritual powers and the insomnia was the result of her mind and body not yet being able to cope with what the powers would reveal to her.
I was trying to circumvent the wrench problem by having the issue of the insomnia be a supernatural one external to the natural order of things, which is why the corvus genus would come into play as trying to counteract the supernatural effect.
I was trying also to relate her to the two different concepts from the corvus genus by having the crow be the protector aspect that either merges with her or defends her while the raven is the one that takes on the time warp dreaming effects it searches for the resolution to her unnatural death.
The reason for the time warp effect while dreaming I was going to characterize as the side effect of eternal entities( the corvus genus" interacting with an immortal entity (the girls soul). As the girls soul can not experience eternity as the corvus genus would, what instead happens is that since the raven/crows are connected to and/or protecting her spirit as they try to solve the cause of or prevent her death, her soul is instead divided between the two aspects, resulting in a divide in her consciousness and the projection of a version of herself in the future.
Put simply, the crow would protect and monitor the soul in present while the raven monitors the soul in future. Because the crow/raven are eternal, the only thing restricting their status in time is their duty. The girl is attached to the crow/raven through a matter of necessity in the solving of her unnatural case. This is what results in a divide as her soul interacts with two different eternal aspects at two different points in time, which forces her soul to make a leap between the two points depending on her state of consciousness. When her consciousness is attached to her body and the crow more strongly she is awake, when she sleeps or experiences other divided states her soul travels over to the raven and projects itself into the future.
Her taking on the role of the corvus genus would result from a mix of being attached to their mental states as well as a personal desire to both solve and prevent the same kind of thing that happened to her.
As Ghost said, I like to babble and figure out the technical side, but ain't particularly strong on the writing stuff. SO I can explain this stuff conceptually to hell and back again, refining my own idea that way, but when it comes to turning it into something someone without a philosophy/theology degree might want to read....I get a little lost there...
The whole talking to people thing has never really been my personal interest or strong suit, I've basically only ever made public speeches about sociology about the origin of societal structures and the quirks our communities generate and interrelated psyche patterns and how they affect society and for philosophy on the effects of eternality and concepts about planar consciousness based on quantum mechanics.
Basically...er...I don;t do that "talking to people" stuff, I'm the kinda person that stands on the side lines and watching and learning everything, then locking most of those secrets away for seminars.
the other problem I have.... is that too often, something so personal as "finding out who killed me" is WAY too self centered to work effectively in any group dynamic....
that is to say, she needs to have some other motive for being here/sticking around.... and since you constantly remove humanity from your characters, she has nothing to keep her here other than her utterly selfish motives.
that makes for a very difficult, unenjoyable hero.... no matter how "not emo" she is about it.
if we cant identify, if nothing she does is impactful to anyone else... if shes just here for her own reasons....
it might make an interesting novel
but it cant make an interesting Hero.
personally, writer to writer.... you need to get off your high horse about humanity. To me, it sounds like juvenille rebellion and a predisposition towards self agrandization.
If you continue to "invent" character who have no reason to involve themselves in anyone's life but their own.... you will continue to find them difficult or impossible to write for (or you will run into grating illogic as you duct tape excuses into their characterization to make them "have to" interact.)
adhereing to a mythos is a solid idea.... so is having a person from the past, being projected into the future.
but if shes in the past, she wouldnt have a spirit guide... in the past she isnt dead... and if she's dead in the present, her spirit guide would appear at whatever time peroid she DID die... either just after she died, to carry her soul onward....
or before hand to try and prevent it.
neither seems to be the case.... so your character, though founded in a mythos, has no relevance to it. you might as well have a character called "Resistance" have him be french, have a french flag costume, have his whole backstory be french, IN french....
and then say that for no apparent reason he's in feudal japan and speaks perfect japanese but cant figure out japanese culture because he is soooo french.
its possible... but it all seems so arbitrary. why bother creating a character with so much inital weight and baggage, if none of it is useful, and none of it is relavent to the current situation?
Mostly...because that's kinda how I think for the most part. Scenarios are easy to set up and parameters lad down in order to generate theories and test outcomes. It's just the way i think about most things now a days.
It's not that I'm on a hight horse, it's mostly because I'm naturally an introvert and instead of trying to actually talk to most people I found it easier to watch and observe them. Eventually that interest or fear of interpersonal development depending how you want to look at it lead me into studying psychology, philosophy, and sociology in college and graduating with a degree in sociology with a minor in psychology. Basically my whole life has been a exercise in avoiding human interaction while knowing everything I could about it. Apparently I thought that if I came into the situation knowing the general potential variables I could comfortably carry through a conversation, but obviously logic cannot trump base genetics, which means I ended up just holing myself up and digging in deeper. It's kind of a frustrating situation to know exactly why you think and act the way you do, and not really being able to change it simply because you have a mental block against it. Guess I'm aware of my own flaws, that's a good step at least towards finding a solution.
The only way I have been comfortable with talking with other people is either in an audience where the anonymity psyche effect takes place, similar to online chatting, as well as when I'm doing debates and seminars on particular subjects.
It kind of results in me having a strong familiarity and fondness with the alienated and introverted mentalities even though I'm distinctly aware of their flaws are, especially when it comes to external interaction. It's also why I dwell on the logic of the lore and the webs spun around it so much, because while I may be able to take another personality and map out the logic patterns they might use in order to dictate their behavioral patterns, it's easier for me to take the introvert or outsider mindset and try to manipulate that simply because it's the only one I have personal experience with.
To "get off that high horse" would be to stop doing what I'm technically paid to do, or at least used to be, as well as stop thinking in the same pattern that I basically structured my life around.
Also, think you might of misinterpreted the lore I was referring to with the aspects of past and present. The two core mythos being referenced was the Native American mythos of crows being protectors, while ravens are the carriers of the should of the dead from traditional Japanese mythos. Where those link to be the mythos of the corvus genus is where it would result in that rift.
I'm also applying the concept of eternality and immortality and the differences between the two to this concept as well in order to make it logical.
Eternal entities exist "without time" while immortal entities exist "without end". An immortal entity exists within time though, whereas an eternal entity exists as a consistent entity across time. What this means though is that if it was to interact with an object within time, such as an immortal entity, either the eternal entity would have to be pulled to the immortals point of focus or the immortal would be displaced to the eternals point of focus.
That therein is the difference between the crow aspect protecting the girl's past body and her spirit being pulled forward in time by the raven aspect. it would be a joint effect, which I did say prior the raven's first appearance would be when she dies. As I also said it would be the result of an unnatural happenstance, or occurrence outside of the natural order, which would be why the crow/raven couldn't prevent it or pin it down and instead have to tie in with her soul to track down the cause. The interaction between eternality and immortality I was actually going to cite as the reason for her shift in personality to that similar of the corvus genus in seeking to aid and help others, due to homogenization of the unfixed aspect to withstand the effects of the interaction and difference in interaction with time.
Guess the other options I had would be to go with a simpler mythos and background concept, like maybe she's just one of the corvus genus out trying to fulfill it's duty protecting people. It was that or taking a bit more of an anime approach and claiming her as a chosen avatar for the corvus genus.
rather than using this forum, and this medium to reinforce aspects of your own personality that you feel both cannot be changed, and untterly hamstring your ability to interact socially....
...you should do everything you can to use the UNIVERSALLY OMNIPOTENT role of "writer" to engage in social interactions you would otherwise feel unable or unwilling to do.
stop trying to make a character around the things you've studdied in books... and start using some of that supposed "learned" knowlege you aquired from observing people in the real world interacting...
explaining the context and function of your character's powers is an awsome TOOL to have at your disposal... a way to shape events in your story....
but WHO your character is, who she is as a person is all that anyone who ever reads about your character will ever really care about, as long as the story makes sense (decient grammer, comprehensible science, avoidance of psychobabble or other "terminology heavy" concepts... that sort of thing)
Its something you universally lack in the 4 characters you've shown me. You know "what" your characters are, but you have no concept, no interest even... in who they are.
You're in an introvert, i spent 15 years of my life as a horrible introvert.... I know what it is to brood at night, turning a situation over and over and over again, following every possible pathway of every possible choice to its inevetable conclusion... and I know what it feels like, to constantly feel adrift around other people.
I also know that its a genetic pre-disposition, not a chemical or biological failure....believing it is impossible to change, that you "are what god made you" and theres no reason to change is the only thing preventing you from a more normal level of social interaction.
and you know what helped me the most? what *fixed* my introversion?
Being online.
Being social here.. being able to leave convention at the door and use the keyboard as a smoke screen, to say what I felt and what I meant, and what I wanted others to know about me...
and I learned the power of words and arguement, and knowlege and seduction and everything else that other people were able to do from the moment they could talk or walk or remember...
Stop trying to give justification to your own situation, by creating characters that are mirrors to yourself, save that they were created in a lab, or came from another planet, or exist beyond time and human emotion...
make characters who think and feel and live and interact.... directly TIE them to other people, make they're very nature require them to be social.... and then live that fantasy for a while...
you get to control both sides of every situation... you dictate what happens....
if that mousey guy who never had the right thing to say at the right time got to have super powers? Maybe he wouldnt have to say everything in his head... maybe he could win the girl by saving her dog..
or maybe the shy girl in the corner finally got up the courage to say something to the school jock that she had a crush on.. and it totally changed his perception...
or, maybe we should rescue a box of kittens from a burning house, even though it makes no rational or logical sense to do so.
Its fine to make these stoic characters with zero social skills ONLY when their entire story, their entire life, revolves around their ability to break that stoicism... to become human.
without that, the character is a blackhole.... never able to be explored, understood, empathized with, or made whole.
That still would be going against my longstanding structured way of thinking, which would be kind of an issue even if I were to go trying to change it. Kinda conflicts with the logic that's been debated recently as well in regards to necessity of change of the public mindset in order to adapt to evolving technological social structures.
Guess I wouldn't mind a "human" character though...think I might need some help in making a character like that to kick it off...
What would be the viability of just making a character that is more or less just myself without the additional alienating features? Or would the chances at weird technical rants be too much of a turn off? Might actually need a description of how I overall behave and think for anything to be built on that I guess, not including the the past remark about "making RP characters that don't mirror your personality too closely for fear of getting emotionally attached or frustrated over something unpredictable or trivial.
I think you should avoid anything having to do with your normal way of acting or thinking... Im flat out TELLING you to go against your usual MO.
comicbooks, as a medium, are escapism. you arent escaping, you're justifying.
Im saying "take a deep breath, and let yourself escape into a character. be bold, be different... go against the grain a little"
speaking of going against the grain.... its the only way you can make something the way YOU want it to be. if you go with the grain, what you want to make will either be destroyed, or will only be what it was already.... it wont be yours.
if you're going with the grain, you might as well not go at all.
his character only works because his utter lack of (a need for) self control makes him utterly unusable as anything but a sociopathic supervillain, without some guiding morality that is able to control him.
without that balance... hes just a machine gun firing bullets at random... sometimes he hits villains, sometimes heroes, sometimes civilians, and sometimes nothing at all.... but he is always firing.....
...unless there's someone there controlling each trigger pull.
My buddy Charon over on Guru has helped me with some of Yin's origin, but the rest of it needs fleshed out. I have soooo many ideas and information on Yin, his homeworld, etc., but I just don't know how to get them on paper. I'll drop some stuff in here later for ya'll to look at.
sounds great, be glad to help... and tell Charon i totally made his character in the hero creator, how unoriginal!!! ;P
tell him to stop hiding over at guru and to come on over to the big kids table
Could you help me out too?
All I got for my character is that..
1. He can change size at will (like Giant-Man, Goliath, or Atom Smasher for examples)
2. He is 16
3. He is a Mutant
but I can't come up with a good backstory
your story is about a teenage hero, yes?
so, how did he get his powers.... and more importantly why does he use them to be a hero?
if your eyes shoot lasers, its sort of hard to "be normal"... and since everyone teen's ultimate goal is to be normal, to fit in (whether you do that by fitting in, or fitting out... fitting is the important part)
but your hero definately has a "stealth" power. he doesnt have to be huge,
so, firstly, we ask the question, how is he able to do this. is it magic, is it something inate in himself (mutation/alien physiology), or did something happen to him (scientific accident, or successful secret project, for example)
you may be able to use his aquisition of powers as a motive force to power the rest of his story.
for example, if he was granted the powers of a Titan by wearing a magical braclet... much if his background/bio could be discussing how he aquired it in the first place... throw in his desire to learn how to use it... add a dash of danger/trouble, and you've got yourself a story.
the same is true of an experement gone awry... why was he part of it, was his ability a sucess or an accident... what do the experementor's feel about his powers... what about more offical financial backers (corporations, governments, etc)
if he was born that way, how has he learned to cope with being "weird".... how did he first find out about his abilities...
here, we ask that question, "why" did he decide to use his powers as a hero and help people?
ponder those two questions, and get back to me, from there, we can move forward. dont worry about having a "right" answer, this isnt a test... but it is your character, not mine.... I want to help, but it will never feel like he's your hero, if you arent the one making the decisions.
Ghost, always turning to you to answer my question and to give me a guiding light, I was wondering if you could go over my back story (you can reach it via my signature, finished actually though always under improvement) and give me your opinion, if there are any critiques, so on? It'll be near the bottom of the page and finished on the first post of the next page; also some other stories as well, they're merely side, ecetera.
Ok he is a mutant and I guess since most mutants are outcasts in the marvel world
but the thing is he has a sercet identity...........I guess in high school he is like Peter Parker
Allways the one picked on, and just wanting to use his powers against the bullies but knowing it would make things worse.
thats a good solid concept, Ex. Using an existing character gives you a lot of emotional ammunition to use in your writing (eventually you can start mixing and matching character traits and that where the real fun starts ;P)
so, he was born with his powers. Humans/animals work on a system of "Threat response"... that is to say, their minds instantly judge a situation as a "fight" situation (one they can win) or a "flight" situation (one they cant.)
So you can imagine, when your character was young, I mean toddler young...
when got into arguements with the other kids, he could grow to 5' tall "MINE!" and take things from other kids by shear force....
...but oh man, when poppa comes home and finds out about it, hes gonna shrink down to the size of a house cat and hide under the bed!
His powers are organic, natural.... they arent energy beams of death, he doesnt have pokadot skin.... he's unusual, but he isnt freakish.
I would see him as quiet... Bruce Bannerish (look, seriously... dont make me angry). Peter Parker-like in the sense that he's a teen uncomfortable in his own skin, unsure of his place...
hes a nice guy, and has a sold group of friends (ones that know he's all the back up you'd ever need, but dont expect him to fight their battles for them), and around them, he can be fairly extroverted.
I cant see him as a loner, it doesnt make sense, to me.
but he doesnt like new people. not that hes "against" them, but that it makes him uncomfortable. He likes his group of friends, because they know him, understand him, dont judge him, and know his limits.
but new people.... what if they dont like him, what if they're afraid of him? what if they make him angry, or scared.... what if he freaks out... turns into a living action figure.... or a monster?
so, he's quiet, unassuming, maybe even a little shorter... he tries to fade into the masses when he's not around people he knows.
So, why is he a hero?
To me, it would seem that your character, while not ashamed of who he is... doesnt wholy trust himself. Has those bad dreams of growing to the size of a skycrapper and stepping on someone's baby, or so small that someone steps on him.... that sort of thing.
What started out as a personal quest to break the "impulsive" nature of his abilities (i.e. just because Im arguing with Travis, doesnt mean I have to be 8' tall! Just because my dad yells about me getting a D on a test because I didnt study, doesnt mean I turn into a 5 yearold again)
could easily become a desire to use those abilities to help people... to be accepted on his own terms...
to not blend into the crowd, To stand out, proudly... and have people he's never met before respect and empathize with him.... understand him.
Not be afraid of him.
My character "The crimson Wasp" is the latest in a long line of adventurers and super heroes who all posess a mystical force. The force can be used in any number of ways. For instance The first member of his family to weild the power The crimson corsair(his ancestor of the 16th/17th centuries) would focuss his energy through his sabre.
The wasp is young and a bit unsure of himself. He wants to to good but is unsure of his origins... Even though he was chosen to have the power that he feels reluctant because of his lack of choice.
He is a mix of :The Spirit and Iron fist focussing his power into his fists.
My character "The crimson Wasp" is the latest in a long line of adventurers and super heroes who all posess a mystical force. The force can be used in any number of ways. For instance The first member of his family to weild the power The crimson corsair(his ancestor of the 16th/17th centuries) would focuss his energy through his sabre.
The wasp is young and a bit unsure of himself. He wants to to good but is unsure of his origins... Even though he was chosen to have the power that he feels reluctant because of his lack of choice.
He is a mix of :The Spirit and Iron fist focussing his power into his fists.
I need help explaining how he became a crime fighter and help defining how the mystical "force" he uses operate's and what exactly it is.
"For those who came in late...
Many centuries ago, in the mysterious east, a French Corsair came into possession of the Force, a massive ruby that held unknown powers. Lust for the stone tore his happy crew of privateers apart, and the ship was destroyed in the great storms below the horn of Africa.
But all was not lost, for whoever possesed the fabled stone was granted with an ancient power, imbuing its weilder with innumerable gifts.
The Corsair captain survived the storm, but took to heart the lessons learned on board his ship. The power of the Force was far too great, and the greed of mankind would allow the stone to cause ruin upon the earth.
Since that time, in secret, the descendants of the corsair have guarded the Force and maintained its secrets. Furthermore the men of his bloodline have taken up the mantle to fight greed, cruelty, and abuses of power no matter the form it takes, using the gifts of the stone."
Much like the Lantern.... The force takes its queues from its weilder.... so, while the Corsair used it as a sword, the wasp may use it to fly... it all has to do with an individuals interpretation of what the Force can do...
....the reality is, of course, that the power of the stone can do anything... but the human mind cant truely comprehend "anything"... and so, in a way, the keepers of the Force... totemize its powers.
I do, however, highly recommend you change the name of the stone and ignore any "Force" jokes if you don't.
Going with the greed and protection from greed angles that Ghost set-up, you might consider a name such as the "Heart of Man" for the stone. Or anything more traditional for a large gemstone, really.
I figure that you can call the stone whatever you want... its easy to simply replace one term for another.
-nods- Definitely, I just wanted to point it out so it wasn't left alone. It worked in The Master of Disguise, but just because they were making fun of it. "So, it's like the Force" -slap- "It's nothing like the Force!"
Also interested in peoples suggestions for an archnemisis. All suggestions welcome but try to stick away from similar powers.(that said if you could tie them into my hero in some way i'd be interested)
as for villains... I think it would be cool to see something like... a CEO of a major corporation dipping into the occult, trying to aquire more power.... maybe even a thief of antiquities on the side
...like an evil Thomas Crown meets... the main nazi guy in The Last Crusade...
or to give him his full name "Maximillion lucius Gamble II"
I'm thinking of having the two families to have had a long running rivalry and hatred all starting with the betrayal of the french corsair(could'nt think of a family name yet...) by the greed of his shipmate Sir Gamble the first.
the idea of having a white collar criminial/ treasure hunter and jewell thief suits my character's pulp sensibilties well I think.
I see Max Gamble as leading by example, overseeing his own heists and expedition becuase of his own greed.
yep, I agree it fits the pulpy background your going for.... very fitting of the likes of the Phantom, actually... not sure if thats what we were going for.
I like the phantom-esque elements but this guy is more of a cross between your standard domino mask wearing trechcoated man of mystery(ala the Spirit) and the martial arts skills and energy channeling similar to Iron fist. Not to say he I would rule out making him a bit more Phantom-like... i'm imagining him now as being a bit like Kit Walker(or was that his sons name? I can't rember so well) more than the phantom per se.
The phantom always struck me as having some dectective noir type qualities in and out of costume.
ahh.. so your more punch first ask questions later?
Sorry, I was seeing a whole Green Hornet/Phantom sort of hybrid thing going on.... well, the background is pretty vague, he can play out however you intend to play him with that same history...
Comments
Heh, I definitely agree. Which is why I put in the disclaimer that I'm better at finding holes and helping fill them in than creating it whole-cloth.
I'm assuming the Rocket would be primarily a flyer, using aerial combat maneuvers (mostly charges and move throughs from unexpected angles)?
Slightly confused. Were these just meant as examples, or did you want the team built around these two core members?
Inspiration
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...%3Den%26sa%3DG
From the 50's B era...MENTO, the unofficial leader of the group. An alien and expert in all forms of mental combat. Reports directly to Area 51 where he was first taken after he was discovered, has the highest government clearance, longs for the teams female member...and secretly despises humanity.
Inspiration
http://www.geocities.com/scottnliss/sinestro1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Leaderhulk.PNG
UltraNationalist (or some derivation) would be the symbolic figurehead (I've gone as far as to imagine him with NO powers, only there to put a handsome face on an otherwise questionable looking team) and "official" leader of the group.
Inspiration
http://i33.tinypic.com/2m5j7h1.jpg...This is of course a joke.
...Actually, these characters were to be members of a team called The MIGHTIES, but the story that's shaping up in my head seems like the antithesis of that name.
Corvus Coridae - the raven
The premise in and of itself being, she's a "memory" of herself that spawns when her past self is dreaming.
What's going on is that in the past there is a girl who, whenever she dreams, a version of herself is manifested in the future. The cause o this was that she used to have a sleeping insomnia disorder that caused her to not dream, but an event changed her. The first dream she ever saw, she watched herself die in the future. Ever since then, whenever she sleeps, she manifests in the future after she had died as a raven, eventually becoming the entity Corvus Coridae.
I need to think it over a bit more and explain it a bit, but that's the concept I want to base it on.
Was her physical form somehow displaced into the past, making her "dream" form a memory held by the timeline? I'm assuming the dream form will be her only manifestation in the game, in order to avoid the confusion of time jumps?
Just a few quick questions to help give a direction.
And somewhat going from a philosophical/religious point of view because I'm trying to tie in lore to ravens and crows.
Hrm. Dreams and Death usually mean nightmares and/or warnings. Is she going to carry a warning to potential murder victims, or try to protect them?
Wait, how far in the past was her physical form?
The reason I ask is that I'm thinking she was in Detroit when it was destroyed. Her dream-self now "haunts" (for lack of a better term) the new Millenium City, trying to ensure that such death on a massive scale now revisits it. Being the dream-image of her own soul and the manner of her death could give her the spiritual ties to the raven and crow you're looking for. In addition to being harbingers of death, corbies were seen as ill omens so she could be an omen to evil doers and a balm to the souls of the righteous as she aids them in passing over while a pointed bit of foreshadowing to the souls of slain evil as she takes them to their final punishments.
i think of it like "sliding doors"... where one event utterly changes her fate.... for good or evil.
Being a particular type of insomniac, her unlikely dreams were believe to be portents for the future... oracle-like.
a group (technological, mystic, religious, etc) abducts the child, and attempts to use these fortune tellings to predict future events (ala paycheck)
the experement succeeds in the past, but not in the way the organization hopes... The child, while awake becomes a doomsayer, able to see pitfalls and dangers... and in the past, until now, the organization has used that ability to ammass a shadowy empire of crime and corruption....
...but in her dreams, she becomes Corvus Corvidae, the Raven... a clever and wise trickster determined to overthrow the Doomsayer and the Organization that controls her.
In essense... a story about the Spiritual goodness of a person fighting against the penultimate version of their evil nature (for, in the present, Corvus Corvidae's human form still exists... as the Oracle of this organization... decadent and corrupt... evil as her masters.)
The relations I wanted to tie her to was with the crows being known as life givers and caretakers of humanity coupled with ravens being known as guides for the dead to the afterlife. Didn't actually want to represent her personality as a traditionally morbid type character, more of a pained optimist.
The thing about seeing her own death was to kinda try and produce the same situation as might be done by witnessing another close one's death. I also wanted the event to be relatively obscure for her so there's still a sense of wonder of confusion about it to be that she's looking to solve the mystery of her own death.
As for tying in the corvus stuff, i was relating her to the genus of corvus in general due to the idea that as spiritual protectors there was something unnatural about her death which they are trying to solve. The whole thing about the insomnia is supposed to be that effect too as it's an unnatural state of being.
Guess it might be helpful to say my inspiration comes somewhat from things like The Jacket. So thinking of it more like what's going on there is what I want a parallel to.
lets be frank, Mony..... you usually have a clear idea of your character in your head... what you lack is a way to get the concept into a "story form".... you like the "technical" aspects of your characters, how they tick.... and this seems like another "alien to humanity" set up your at.
personally... I think that you're way too far into the realm of the Crow to justify so much thought.... basically your making a really complicated and obscure sort of background, for a character that, in practice, is all but indistinguishable from an existing character. (baring the optimism angle, anyway)
I hadnt heard of ravens being known as guides to the afterlife.... what cultures thought that?
usually their either related to bad things (the souls of someone who was murdered or the damned) Ill omens and the like....
or they're wise, crafty/clever... sometimes gods, sometimes simple animals bestowed with supernatural powers (sight or hearing)
havent heard the guide thing before...
Pretty much the most common relations I think people know for the corvus genus is the Native American lore and the European lore. There's quite a bit of older Asian lore about these guys though that just isn't circulated anymore, mostly because it's a theology that's no longer supported in just about any way and instead got close to stomped out by monotheism.
I'm kinda trying to move away from the commonly thought of western beliefs because they have a lot of preconceived notions about them, as you illustrated, and trying to move towards the personality of the beliefs that have fallen out of favor, mostly because at this point it would be more fresh and unique rather than another run of the mill person in black out to avenge.
I want her death and the seeking of resolution of her death to be a factor yes, but not all who want to solve a murder (even their own) have to be out looking to stomp out crime in a pseudo-gothy anti-hero style. Would much rather take on the role of protector and guide than avenger and morbid emo. She should be sad and confused about her death, but resolved enough to solve it and move on, trudge onward with a known variable and make the best of what you have more or less. I would like her to look the traditional role of the corvus genus, yes, but as i said in no way does that mean I want it to be a traditional western lore concept.
Think I have a hard time making any character that's "human". Humanity isn't something I've ever logically been fond of being related to, mostly because the vast amount of oddities and issues I've come to understand that are derived from some very simple mechanics that one would hope a species that touts it's intelligence above others would be capable of solving. Alas, it's basically against our nature to do some of the things required to solve most our basic issues.
I was actually aiming for this character to be a part of the mythology pantheon guild forming up, which is why I was trying to keep a strong association with the corvus genus.
As for the Jacket, it's apparently referenced as "Jacob's Ladder meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", though I still rather like the concept. Another comparison might be a 12 Monkeys situation with her spirit jumping forward while she sleeps instead of going to the past to fulfill a time line.
Another source you might check would be the book it's based on, The Star Rover (published as The Jacket in the UK)
I have heard of ravens as the guides to the afterlife before, but it was in a fantasy book that seemed loosely based on the celtic/norse mythos and was the only source so didn't realize it wasn't made up (not that strong on anything outside of Greek mythology...and nothing obscure there heh).
The displaced spiritual guide concept sort of throws a wrench in what you'd said before, though. If a spirit guide were to be born into human flesh, why the insomnia? When it's cured, why would the dreams be a Cassandra-syndrome retake?
Hrm...one of the spriitual ravens grew disenchanted with its role as a protector and guide with humanity as it watched human interactions for centuries. In fact, it grew somewhat jealous and decided to take human form to experience the world as humans do.
At this point, you have two options. It took the form of your character while she was still in the womb, basicly stealing the body and displacing the unborn childs own soul. Or, it took the form of one of her parents and was trapped in that form/refused to leave it until its family died.
If it displaced the childs soul, then that gives you your present-form character. The soul didn't die when displaced, but did grow up outside of the body and was taught by the rest of the spirit ravens. The insomnia was from the fact that the raven-soul within the body didn't dream. The Cassandraesque prophecy dreams were a result of the human soul trying to send warnings to the human realm in order to avert the disasters. When these didn't move the raven in the stolen body to help, she showed it the body's death. The raven stll didn't help and upon the death of the body instead of being freed as it expected, its consciousness was destroyed and its spiritual energy was given to the disembodied soul, along with the responsibilities it had neglected.
If one of the parents, the child was simply the inheritor of the ravens spiritual powers and the insomnia was the result of her mind and body not yet being able to cope with what the powers would reveal to her.
I was trying also to relate her to the two different concepts from the corvus genus by having the crow be the protector aspect that either merges with her or defends her while the raven is the one that takes on the time warp dreaming effects it searches for the resolution to her unnatural death.
The reason for the time warp effect while dreaming I was going to characterize as the side effect of eternal entities( the corvus genus" interacting with an immortal entity (the girls soul). As the girls soul can not experience eternity as the corvus genus would, what instead happens is that since the raven/crows are connected to and/or protecting her spirit as they try to solve the cause of or prevent her death, her soul is instead divided between the two aspects, resulting in a divide in her consciousness and the projection of a version of herself in the future.
Put simply, the crow would protect and monitor the soul in present while the raven monitors the soul in future. Because the crow/raven are eternal, the only thing restricting their status in time is their duty. The girl is attached to the crow/raven through a matter of necessity in the solving of her unnatural case. This is what results in a divide as her soul interacts with two different eternal aspects at two different points in time, which forces her soul to make a leap between the two points depending on her state of consciousness. When her consciousness is attached to her body and the crow more strongly she is awake, when she sleeps or experiences other divided states her soul travels over to the raven and projects itself into the future.
Her taking on the role of the corvus genus would result from a mix of being attached to their mental states as well as a personal desire to both solve and prevent the same kind of thing that happened to her.
As Ghost said, I like to babble and figure out the technical side, but ain't particularly strong on the writing stuff. SO I can explain this stuff conceptually to hell and back again, refining my own idea that way, but when it comes to turning it into something someone without a philosophy/theology degree might want to read....I get a little lost there...
The whole talking to people thing has never really been my personal interest or strong suit, I've basically only ever made public speeches about sociology about the origin of societal structures and the quirks our communities generate and interrelated psyche patterns and how they affect society and for philosophy on the effects of eternality and concepts about planar consciousness based on quantum mechanics.
Basically...er...I don;t do that "talking to people" stuff, I'm the kinda person that stands on the side lines and watching and learning everything, then locking most of those secrets away for seminars.
that is to say, she needs to have some other motive for being here/sticking around.... and since you constantly remove humanity from your characters, she has nothing to keep her here other than her utterly selfish motives.
that makes for a very difficult, unenjoyable hero.... no matter how "not emo" she is about it.
if we cant identify, if nothing she does is impactful to anyone else... if shes just here for her own reasons....
it might make an interesting novel
but it cant make an interesting Hero.
personally, writer to writer.... you need to get off your high horse about humanity. To me, it sounds like juvenille rebellion and a predisposition towards self agrandization.
If you continue to "invent" character who have no reason to involve themselves in anyone's life but their own.... you will continue to find them difficult or impossible to write for (or you will run into grating illogic as you duct tape excuses into their characterization to make them "have to" interact.)
adhereing to a mythos is a solid idea.... so is having a person from the past, being projected into the future.
but if shes in the past, she wouldnt have a spirit guide... in the past she isnt dead... and if she's dead in the present, her spirit guide would appear at whatever time peroid she DID die... either just after she died, to carry her soul onward....
or before hand to try and prevent it.
neither seems to be the case.... so your character, though founded in a mythos, has no relevance to it. you might as well have a character called "Resistance" have him be french, have a french flag costume, have his whole backstory be french, IN french....
and then say that for no apparent reason he's in feudal japan and speaks perfect japanese but cant figure out japanese culture because he is soooo french.
its possible... but it all seems so arbitrary. why bother creating a character with so much inital weight and baggage, if none of it is useful, and none of it is relavent to the current situation?
It's not that I'm on a hight horse, it's mostly because I'm naturally an introvert and instead of trying to actually talk to most people I found it easier to watch and observe them. Eventually that interest or fear of interpersonal development depending how you want to look at it lead me into studying psychology, philosophy, and sociology in college and graduating with a degree in sociology with a minor in psychology. Basically my whole life has been a exercise in avoiding human interaction while knowing everything I could about it. Apparently I thought that if I came into the situation knowing the general potential variables I could comfortably carry through a conversation, but obviously logic cannot trump base genetics, which means I ended up just holing myself up and digging in deeper. It's kind of a frustrating situation to know exactly why you think and act the way you do, and not really being able to change it simply because you have a mental block against it. Guess I'm aware of my own flaws, that's a good step at least towards finding a solution.
The only way I have been comfortable with talking with other people is either in an audience where the anonymity psyche effect takes place, similar to online chatting, as well as when I'm doing debates and seminars on particular subjects.
It kind of results in me having a strong familiarity and fondness with the alienated and introverted mentalities even though I'm distinctly aware of their flaws are, especially when it comes to external interaction. It's also why I dwell on the logic of the lore and the webs spun around it so much, because while I may be able to take another personality and map out the logic patterns they might use in order to dictate their behavioral patterns, it's easier for me to take the introvert or outsider mindset and try to manipulate that simply because it's the only one I have personal experience with.
To "get off that high horse" would be to stop doing what I'm technically paid to do, or at least used to be, as well as stop thinking in the same pattern that I basically structured my life around.
Also, think you might of misinterpreted the lore I was referring to with the aspects of past and present. The two core mythos being referenced was the Native American mythos of crows being protectors, while ravens are the carriers of the should of the dead from traditional Japanese mythos. Where those link to be the mythos of the corvus genus is where it would result in that rift.
I'm also applying the concept of eternality and immortality and the differences between the two to this concept as well in order to make it logical.
Eternal entities exist "without time" while immortal entities exist "without end". An immortal entity exists within time though, whereas an eternal entity exists as a consistent entity across time. What this means though is that if it was to interact with an object within time, such as an immortal entity, either the eternal entity would have to be pulled to the immortals point of focus or the immortal would be displaced to the eternals point of focus.
That therein is the difference between the crow aspect protecting the girl's past body and her spirit being pulled forward in time by the raven aspect. it would be a joint effect, which I did say prior the raven's first appearance would be when she dies. As I also said it would be the result of an unnatural happenstance, or occurrence outside of the natural order, which would be why the crow/raven couldn't prevent it or pin it down and instead have to tie in with her soul to track down the cause. The interaction between eternality and immortality I was actually going to cite as the reason for her shift in personality to that similar of the corvus genus in seeking to aid and help others, due to homogenization of the unfixed aspect to withstand the effects of the interaction and difference in interaction with time.
Guess the other options I had would be to go with a simpler mythos and background concept, like maybe she's just one of the corvus genus out trying to fulfill it's duty protecting people. It was that or taking a bit more of an anime approach and claiming her as a chosen avatar for the corvus genus.
...you should do everything you can to use the UNIVERSALLY OMNIPOTENT role of "writer" to engage in social interactions you would otherwise feel unable or unwilling to do.
stop trying to make a character around the things you've studdied in books... and start using some of that supposed "learned" knowlege you aquired from observing people in the real world interacting...
explaining the context and function of your character's powers is an awsome TOOL to have at your disposal... a way to shape events in your story....
but WHO your character is, who she is as a person is all that anyone who ever reads about your character will ever really care about, as long as the story makes sense (decient grammer, comprehensible science, avoidance of psychobabble or other "terminology heavy" concepts... that sort of thing)
Its something you universally lack in the 4 characters you've shown me. You know "what" your characters are, but you have no concept, no interest even... in who they are.
You're in an introvert, i spent 15 years of my life as a horrible introvert.... I know what it is to brood at night, turning a situation over and over and over again, following every possible pathway of every possible choice to its inevetable conclusion... and I know what it feels like, to constantly feel adrift around other people.
I also know that its a genetic pre-disposition, not a chemical or biological failure....believing it is impossible to change, that you "are what god made you" and theres no reason to change is the only thing preventing you from a more normal level of social interaction.
and you know what helped me the most? what *fixed* my introversion?
Being online.
Being social here.. being able to leave convention at the door and use the keyboard as a smoke screen, to say what I felt and what I meant, and what I wanted others to know about me...
and I learned the power of words and arguement, and knowlege and seduction and everything else that other people were able to do from the moment they could talk or walk or remember...
Stop trying to give justification to your own situation, by creating characters that are mirrors to yourself, save that they were created in a lab, or came from another planet, or exist beyond time and human emotion...
make characters who think and feel and live and interact.... directly TIE them to other people, make they're very nature require them to be social.... and then live that fantasy for a while...
you get to control both sides of every situation... you dictate what happens....
if that mousey guy who never had the right thing to say at the right time got to have super powers? Maybe he wouldnt have to say everything in his head... maybe he could win the girl by saving her dog..
or maybe the shy girl in the corner finally got up the courage to say something to the school jock that she had a crush on.. and it totally changed his perception...
or, maybe we should rescue a box of kittens from a burning house, even though it makes no rational or logical sense to do so.
Its fine to make these stoic characters with zero social skills ONLY when their entire story, their entire life, revolves around their ability to break that stoicism... to become human.
without that, the character is a blackhole.... never able to be explored, understood, empathized with, or made whole.
Guess I wouldn't mind a "human" character though...think I might need some help in making a character like that to kick it off...
What would be the viability of just making a character that is more or less just myself without the additional alienating features? Or would the chances at weird technical rants be too much of a turn off? Might actually need a description of how I overall behave and think for anything to be built on that I guess, not including the the past remark about "making RP characters that don't mirror your personality too closely for fear of getting emotionally attached or frustrated over something unpredictable or trivial.
comicbooks, as a medium, are escapism. you arent escaping, you're justifying.
Im saying "take a deep breath, and let yourself escape into a character. be bold, be different... go against the grain a little"
speaking of going against the grain.... its the only way you can make something the way YOU want it to be. if you go with the grain, what you want to make will either be destroyed, or will only be what it was already.... it wont be yours.
if you're going with the grain, you might as well not go at all.
Break the mold, Mony.
his character only works because his utter lack of (a need for) self control makes him utterly unusable as anything but a sociopathic supervillain, without some guiding morality that is able to control him.
without that balance... hes just a machine gun firing bullets at random... sometimes he hits villains, sometimes heroes, sometimes civilians, and sometimes nothing at all.... but he is always firing.....
...unless there's someone there controlling each trigger pull.
tell him to stop hiding over at guru and to come on over to the big kids table
PM forthcoming.
All I got for my character is that..
1. He can change size at will (like Giant-Man, Goliath, or Atom Smasher for examples)
2. He is 16
3. He is a Mutant
but I can't come up with a good backstory
your story is about a teenage hero, yes?
so, how did he get his powers.... and more importantly why does he use them to be a hero?
if your eyes shoot lasers, its sort of hard to "be normal"... and since everyone teen's ultimate goal is to be normal, to fit in (whether you do that by fitting in, or fitting out... fitting is the important part)
but your hero definately has a "stealth" power. he doesnt have to be huge,
so, firstly, we ask the question, how is he able to do this. is it magic, is it something inate in himself (mutation/alien physiology), or did something happen to him (scientific accident, or successful secret project, for example)
you may be able to use his aquisition of powers as a motive force to power the rest of his story.
for example, if he was granted the powers of a Titan by wearing a magical braclet... much if his background/bio could be discussing how he aquired it in the first place... throw in his desire to learn how to use it... add a dash of danger/trouble, and you've got yourself a story.
the same is true of an experement gone awry... why was he part of it, was his ability a sucess or an accident... what do the experementor's feel about his powers... what about more offical financial backers (corporations, governments, etc)
if he was born that way, how has he learned to cope with being "weird".... how did he first find out about his abilities...
here, we ask that question, "why" did he decide to use his powers as a hero and help people?
ponder those two questions, and get back to me, from there, we can move forward. dont worry about having a "right" answer, this isnt a test... but it is your character, not mine.... I want to help, but it will never feel like he's your hero, if you arent the one making the decisions.
but the thing is he has a sercet identity...........I guess in high school he is like Peter Parker
Allways the one picked on, and just wanting to use his powers against the bullies but knowing it would make things worse.
so, he was born with his powers. Humans/animals work on a system of "Threat response"... that is to say, their minds instantly judge a situation as a "fight" situation (one they can win) or a "flight" situation (one they cant.)
So you can imagine, when your character was young, I mean toddler young...
when got into arguements with the other kids, he could grow to 5' tall "MINE!" and take things from other kids by shear force....
...but oh man, when poppa comes home and finds out about it, hes gonna shrink down to the size of a house cat and hide under the bed!
His powers are organic, natural.... they arent energy beams of death, he doesnt have pokadot skin.... he's unusual, but he isnt freakish.
I would see him as quiet... Bruce Bannerish (look, seriously... dont make me angry). Peter Parker-like in the sense that he's a teen uncomfortable in his own skin, unsure of his place...
hes a nice guy, and has a sold group of friends (ones that know he's all the back up you'd ever need, but dont expect him to fight their battles for them), and around them, he can be fairly extroverted.
I cant see him as a loner, it doesnt make sense, to me.
but he doesnt like new people. not that hes "against" them, but that it makes him uncomfortable. He likes his group of friends, because they know him, understand him, dont judge him, and know his limits.
but new people.... what if they dont like him, what if they're afraid of him? what if they make him angry, or scared.... what if he freaks out... turns into a living action figure.... or a monster?
so, he's quiet, unassuming, maybe even a little shorter... he tries to fade into the masses when he's not around people he knows.
So, why is he a hero?
To me, it would seem that your character, while not ashamed of who he is... doesnt wholy trust himself. Has those bad dreams of growing to the size of a skycrapper and stepping on someone's baby, or so small that someone steps on him.... that sort of thing.
What started out as a personal quest to break the "impulsive" nature of his abilities (i.e. just because Im arguing with Travis, doesnt mean I have to be 8' tall! Just because my dad yells about me getting a D on a test because I didnt study, doesnt mean I turn into a 5 yearold again)
could easily become a desire to use those abilities to help people... to be accepted on his own terms...
to not blend into the crowd, To stand out, proudly... and have people he's never met before respect and empathize with him.... understand him.
Not be afraid of him.
The wasp is young and a bit unsure of himself. He wants to to good but is unsure of his origins... Even though he was chosen to have the power that he feels reluctant because of his lack of choice.
He is a mix of :The Spirit and Iron fist focussing his power into his fists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist_%28comics%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit
I need help explaining how he became a crime fighter and help defining how the mystical "force" he uses operate's and what exactly it is.
(note that I can grow 3x my size but I can't shrink under 5' 10" which is my normal calm height)
"For those who came in late...
Many centuries ago, in the mysterious east, a French Corsair came into possession of the Force, a massive ruby that held unknown powers. Lust for the stone tore his happy crew of privateers apart, and the ship was destroyed in the great storms below the horn of Africa.
But all was not lost, for whoever possesed the fabled stone was granted with an ancient power, imbuing its weilder with innumerable gifts.
The Corsair captain survived the storm, but took to heart the lessons learned on board his ship. The power of the Force was far too great, and the greed of mankind would allow the stone to cause ruin upon the earth.
Since that time, in secret, the descendants of the corsair have guarded the Force and maintained its secrets. Furthermore the men of his bloodline have taken up the mantle to fight greed, cruelty, and abuses of power no matter the form it takes, using the gifts of the stone."
Much like the Lantern.... The force takes its queues from its weilder.... so, while the Corsair used it as a sword, the wasp may use it to fly... it all has to do with an individuals interpretation of what the Force can do...
....the reality is, of course, that the power of the stone can do anything... but the human mind cant truely comprehend "anything"... and so, in a way, the keepers of the Force... totemize its powers.
Going with the greed and protection from greed angles that Ghost set-up, you might consider a name such as the "Heart of Man" for the stone. Or anything more traditional for a large gemstone, really.
-nods- Definitely, I just wanted to point it out so it wasn't left alone. It worked in The Master of Disguise, but just because they were making fun of it. "So, it's like the Force" -slap- "It's nothing like the Force!"
and the stone is gonna be red rather than green(to avoid accusations of ripping off the green lantern)
I just meant it's a kind of energy.....
Emeralds are the green ones
as for villains... I think it would be cool to see something like... a CEO of a major corporation dipping into the occult, trying to aquire more power.... maybe even a thief of antiquities on the side
...like an evil Thomas Crown meets... the main nazi guy in The Last Crusade...
to cheesy?
Unfitting?
I'm thinking of having the two families to have had a long running rivalry and hatred all starting with the betrayal of the french corsair(could'nt think of a family name yet...) by the greed of his shipmate Sir Gamble the first.
the idea of having a white collar criminial/ treasure hunter and jewell thief suits my character's pulp sensibilties well I think.
I see Max Gamble as leading by example, overseeing his own heists and expedition becuase of his own greed.
The phantom always struck me as having some dectective noir type qualities in and out of costume.
Sorry, I was seeing a whole Green Hornet/Phantom sort of hybrid thing going on.... well, the background is pretty vague, he can play out however you intend to play him with that same history...