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quote:The auditorium hushed as the pink haired girl tottered nervously across the stage to the podium. A page of notes clutched tightly in her small hands. She hopped up onto the steps. Her head appearing over the top of the lectern. - - - - -  Halcyon. The Floating city. The City of tomorrow. A collaboration between forces both alien and familiar. A place where the impossible is the everyday. Where the sky is the literal limit. Where all the promises of tomorrow are awaited so impatiently that they invented a time machine just to skip the queue out of spite. Devoid of nation, they welcome all, even those that would seek to destroy them. Because in this city, Superpowers, and those brave individuals who possess them, are real. The early years were rough, vigilantes and criminals battled openly against against each other and the law. Threatening to bring the very city crashing to the ground on numerous occasions. The great experiment seemed doomed to fail on the actions of it's greatest successes! But then, Atlas, a hero much beloved for his daring earth themed heroics, ran for the office of mayor. He had long despised witnessing the waste of the knowledge and skill amongst his peers, and he had big dreams and bigger ideas. He won in a landslide victory.  By which I mean to say he was very popular. Rumours of actual landslides are unfounded and liable in court. He instituted the programs that eventually formed into the Halcyon Empowered Registration Organisation. A oversight body that added an air of legitimacy to the dis-organised vigilantes and their never ending war against evil. Within fifty years, H.E.R.Os were the premier crime fighters within Halcyon. With more children every year developing powers, It was almost inevitable that there would need to be a school. To raise the next generation of crime fighters. Or to teach others to use their powers and apply them to other industries. Not everyone's cut out to be a crime fighter, after all. Though Atlas has long since departed from politics, he's still a powerful influence on the landscape of superheroics. Thus...  Phoenix Academy was born! It wasn't always called that. But it's been rebuilt and reborn so many times that it's nickname became official. And like the mythical bird, it's students rise from the ashes of the past to soar even higher! Welcome to Phoenix. Try not to be a burn out, ya hear?  - - - - - Masks is a Superhero roleplaying game using the PBTA system. Focusing on Teens, like in Teen Titans or Young Justice. This particular game will be using the Masks Unbound Phoenix Academy setting with a few of my own... modifications. All playbooks are welcome, with a couple of provisions, as the setting modifies the playbooks in a couple ways. This game will be run on Discord for my convince. Below is a few things for you to think about for your apps. - You're all going to be "First years". But admittance happens pretty late on. roughly around 15-17 and normally based on how powerful your powers are. You'll have completed the mandatory high school level education up to that point before being transferred. - You're all going to be in the same class. Yay for you! - Answer your playbook questions, art of your character is a plus. - This game is going to be a mix of high school drama, training, lessons, and superheroing proper. - Tone wise, I'll be looking for light- to low dark. If you wanna be a brooding edgelord. That's your choice, but seriously, no creepy poo poo. Expect there to be drama, expect there to be the usual themes explored in a highschool game, but with more lazer eye beams. - expect the bullies to be throwing fireballs. - Below you'll find some things to consider for your playbooks. -  Deadline for apps will be Sunday 30th December. - Any questions, let me know. quote:The Beacon: Because the Beacon is a normal kid (though perhaps one with exceptional skill and/or gadgets), there might be a question as to why they get to go to the Academy. Kids around the world dream about being part of the Phoenix Academy. Why does the Beacon get to be here and they don’t? A good go-to answer is something like a Rising Stars program, designed to work like a lottery for some students at regular high schools around Halcyon City. quote:The Bull: The Bull’s playbook implies that they were somehow modified and turned into a hero. This big secret is a key to the character’s vulnerabilities. If only the Bull knows their secret, who are the people at school most likely to discover it? If the Bull’s origin is well known, does anyone at school share that origin? Is there an adult at the school connected to the origin the Bull might want to protect? Or might want to get some answers from? quote:The Delinquent: Does the Delinquent even want to be here? It’s reasonable to assume that a Delinquent would claim that they wish they were anywhere else. Consider why the Delinquent needs to rebel against the structure of the Phoenix Academy. Do they have a parent who is a teacher at the school? Are they the child of a super hoping to put them on a path to being a hero? quote:The Doomed: It’s assumed that the Doomed has revealed some elements of their doom to their friends on the team. Their playbook is a mixture of secrets and hard truths, both of which can affect them in a school setting. Does the whole school know about the doom? Are other students scared of the Doomed? Are there teachers who think they are a danger to the students, or who want to save the Doomed? quote:The Janus: By default, the school’s faculty members know about the Janus’s full identity, but the rest of the city might not. The Janus might even use their super identity exclusively at school, meaning that their peers don’t even know who they are outside of the mask. The Janus needs to figure out if the important people in their normal life know they attend the Academy. Anyone the Janus knows from public school is going to look at “a scholarship to a private school” with all sorts of feelings ranging from jealousy to disdain. For that matter, if the Janus has a scholarship, that means if they screw up, they could be tossed out of the coolest school in Halcyon City. quote:The Legacy: Schools often use the term legacy to refer to the sibling or offspring of a former student. As the Academy has been around for a few generations, one or more of the Legacy’s forerunners could have been a student or faculty member during those times. If that’s the case, it likely adds another layer of pressure to the Legacy’s shoulders. Not only do the others bearing the same name expect the Legacy to live up to past versions, but the school and teachers do too. If the members of the legacy didn’t attend the Academy, does the young Legacy’s attendance cause friction with older members? After all, they didn’t need any fancy super-schooling to be a hero! quote:The Nova: The Nova must often tread lightly with their peers. They have access to unfathomable power, and their playbook is about knowing how to control it and knowing when to unleash it. Being surrounded by powerful heroes might encourage them to cut loose a little more... or it might put them under the influence of the wrong people. What’s the one thing that the Nova might be willing to lose control to do? Is there someone at school who can push them over the edge out of hate—or love? quote:The Outsider: This playbook already takes a lot of cues from the archetype of the foreign exchange student. In this playset, perhaps that connection is more explicit. Is the Outsider’s schooling tied in with intergalactic politics? Is she here while another young hero studies on her planet? What if that hero fails their classes? What if the Outsider fails hers? What if the Outsider’s planet severs diplomatic ties with Earth? Will her credits transfer? quote:The Protégé: The Protégé must decide how much they end up like their mentor and how much they push away. This playset offers a ready-made collection of other heroes that can affect that dynamic. Is the mentor a faculty member? How does the mentor react when one of the Protégé’s other teachers takes a special interest in them? How does the mentor feel about the Academy?Did they attend it when they were younger? Was it their decision to send the Protégé or did the younger hero choose to go on their own? quote:The Transformed: The Transformed will often be at odds with the group as a loner. But at the Phoenix Academy, there’s likely a Clique of kids who feel alone and isolated. The Transformed might explore the same themes but through being caught between two social groups. Will they choose the friends who accepted them despite their looks or the ones who accepted them because they look different? Other Playbooks The limited edition playbooks can be involved in a Phoenix Academy story as well,though they may require a bit more work to integrate. Generally speaking: quote:The Brain: Phoenix Academy has plenty of laboratories for you to play in, and plenty of people who’d love to teach you about how to deal with your shame. Expect to be frustrated with how much the staff wants to “teach” you. quote:The Harbinger: You only attend school because it plays some role in your overall quest regarding the future. What is that role? Why’d you agree to come here? quote:The Innocent: Did your adult self come to Phoenix Academy, back when they were your age? Are they perhaps tied to any of the major incidents surrounding the school? Do you think this school is going to help, or set you down the same path? quote:The Joined: There’s no better place to both be defined as a single entity, and to find a way to differentiate yourselves. Which way are you going to push? Do you join the same Clique/Club, or different? quote:The Newborn: This is the perfect environment for learning and writing new lessons. Use it! Take them from faculty and from fellow students whenever possible. quote:The Nomad: You’ve seen stars and galaxies and dimensions, and now you’re stuck in boring class. But you still agreed to be here, for some reason. Why? Why can’t you, or won’t you, just leave? quote:The Reformed: You’re probably here as part of the Clean Slate, even though that’s normally aimed at faculty. Are any of your contacts here as faculty? What do you hope to learn here? quote:The Scion: There are plenty of people whose respect you can earn at Phoenix Academy. Make sure you fill in some faculty names in your Respect section. quote:The Soldier: A.E.G.I.S. probably assigned you to Phoenix Academy, both for training and for monitoring—after all, who better to go undercover, watching people like Hellbinder, than a student? quote:The Star: You’re a celebrity even among your own class… but also, Phoenix Academy is one of the only places you can really be free of all those cameras and attention. Is that good or bad? Arashiofordo3 fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Dec 13, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 23:32
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 Lyra, the Nomad I guess I was normal once. Thank god that's over. Normal is so overrated. Out there, in the farscapes, I saw what was truly possible. I've been from one end of time to the other, explored the deepest reaches of the wild territories, and tussled with the sort of threats that make Mr. Handy look like a guy in a lovely halloween handyman costume. Which, okay, yeah, is exactly what he is. Point stands, though. Anyways, you probably want to know about him, huh? Don't worry, everyone does. I can't tell you much, usual privacy caveats and all, but there's some stuff that's public enough to share. • Who took you from the Earth when you were younger? They call him The Professor. No name, no known origin. He just pops up whenever and wherever there's trouble. Kind of like your Halcyon superheros, I guess, but on a grander scale. In any case, it was Christmas... must have been five or six years now? Something like that. It was the year that Evil Santas invaded from the timeline where everyone had been consumed by some sort of Evil Santa Infection. He was running around doing his usual Professor thing, of course, and our paths crossed. My folks... well, let's just say they caught a bad case of Christmas cheer. We ended up working together to find the source of the incursion — the biggest Christmas tree in town, of course — and then he fiddled with one of his fancy gadgets to reverse the portal polarity and suck the Evil Santas back into their own doomed timeline. Which, y'know, great. It was too late to save my folks, though, so I guess they're still running around in red suits in that winter hellscape. Long story short, when it came time for him to leave, I managed to sneak aboard his dimensional cutter. It was touch and go for a few adventures after, of course, but we hit it off. Hell, if it wasn't for that mess with the Apocalypse Sonata, I'd probably still be traveling the farscapes with him. He died, as far as I could tell, and I snagged some rift-tech from the ruins of his cutter. Went solo, figured I'd been a good enough sidekick that I could handle a little interstellar intrigue myself. And, well, with my hyper blaster... let's just say I've kicked a little rear end when people think I might make an easy mark. You know how it goes, though. Not a galactic year — or whatever the Terran equivalent is — later, I hear that he's back at it again with a new sidekick. I thought about looking him up, but... well, what went down seemed pretty final. I hope he's happy out there. He deserves it. • What farscapes did you explore? God, more like which ones didn't I. Time out there, it flows differently. For all that it's been years since I left, it feels like I've been traveling even longer. But... let's see, I'll try and give you a taste of what it was like. One of my favorites was the plane where we found the Sonata. It was weird, even for the farscapes, because everything that went there was turned into music. The Professor was this kind of mysterious, yet wistful march, while I was more of an uptempo jazzy piece. Things got really weird once the fighting started, everything got all free-form and a little mixed up... I've never been able to listen to that retrowave stuff since. Just... brings back memories of killer robot-songs trying to blast me with jagged synth beams. No bueno. Oh, that was another good one! So nearer the end of time, there are these gigantic planet-wide arcologies scattered through known space. I went to one, just for a little R&R between pulse-pounding adventures, and I had the most amazing drink. They call it Transcendence and it looks a little like liquid light in a martini glass. One sip is enough to get a real feel for what it's like to ascend beyond the flesh and become a being of pure thought and emotion. Hell, I think you do become one if you get wasted on the stuff. I like my flesh, though, so it was just a bit of a fun experience for me. • Who was your favorite traveling companion? Aside from the Professor? Hmm... after I went solo, it's gotta be Hazel. She's from an Earth kind of like this one, but without superhero nonsense. I'd gotten knocked off course after a run-in with this machine intelligence from the end of time — long story, trust me — and ended up on the wrong Earth when I was trying to hole up and rewire my rift generator. She ended up being a huge help getting some of the weirder bits I needed, so I asked her to come with me when it was time to leave. She said yes, of course. So we traveled together for a while, saw sights that you can't even describe in words, and generally had a blast. Even so, I knew it wouldn't last forever. She had a family to go back to, people that loved and missed her, and I can get that on some level. I'm a little jealous of that, to be honest, but I can get it. So after a few adventures, I dropped her back off on her Earth with a few souvenirs. Once I can get back to reality hopping, I'll have to drop in and see how she's been. • What brought you back to stay (for now)? Alright, first off, it's not my fault. I don't care what the Interdimensional Time Police say, I wasn't even in that timestream! But, uh, I'm somewhat wanted for tampering with a timeline to create an existential threat. It'll get cleared up eventually, I'm sure, but I'm kind of stuck here in the interdimensional form of claiming sanctuary. There's a lot of reasons behind it, most of which I don't get, but this Earth is pretty much sacrosanct against outside interference. Something about being a nexus in time and space...? Anyways, they can't get me while I'm here... but I need to attend this dumb school as some sort of hero training. Earth laws are so backwards. I mean, please! I've only fought legions of killer robots, bent on devouring space and time, but I definitely need to memorize hero law for some reason. I swear, you just stop a rampaging giant robot with a graviton blaster and next thing you know people are wanting to see your "identification" and asking who gave you "hero clearance" and all sorts of nonsense. Did any of that even exist when I left? Honestly can't remember. Still, it beats time prison. I'll blow through these tests, whatever they are, and then they'll stop hassling me until I leave. • Why do you care about the team? Well, let's be honest. It's not so much that I care about any of them yet, but they have potential. Especially compared to some of the squares around here... Who knows? I might just take one of them with me next time I leave. It gets lonely out there, so I'm always looking for a traveling buddy. The Nomad posted:Name: Lyra Bellant Tricky fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Dec 15, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 23:45
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   Character Theme Battle Theme Going All Out! July 4th, 20XX Dear Diary, Hey there, it’s been a while! Sorry that I’ve been so busy, my life has been chaotic these past few weeks, so it’s my fault that I haven’t been writing to you. I have so much to tell you, I barely know where to begin but I hope you’re eager for quite a lot of writing! You’re the only thing I can discuss this stuff with, so I hope you’re paying close attention! Remember Phoenix Academy? The school Grandma taught at, and the one mom went to, aka the institution they’ve both done their part to prepare me for for practically my entire life? Surprise surprise, I got accepted to it. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I got accepted before I even sent my application in - mom certainly pulled a few strings to get me the acceptance letter I received (they spent three paragraphs telling me how much my powers could help and reminding me of my predecessors’ exploits, as if I didn’t know those things already), and I mean… I can’t blame the Academy for it? They obviously know I have the same powers my mom and grandma did, that I’m to be the next Columbia - we both know what I think about that - and that, well… that’s the crux of things, isn’t it? I have these powers, and I’m expected to use them for the common good, and that’s certainly what I should do. But… sometimes, and this is just between you and me Diary… I don’t know if I want to be Columbia. I liked being Heather, and I guess being Liberteen was alright, but a full fledged Superheroine? Do you know how many enemies my family has made over the years? Plus like, the whole America Rah Rah Rah thing - that’s /so/ 20th century, but I’m expected to shout jingoistic catchphrases all of a sudden while I’m dealing with transferring to a new school? I know you can’t write back Diary but I wish you could, because I could Really use some advice. quote:When did you officially become a part of your legacy? It all started about a year ago. Before then, I’d just been your average kid attending private schools under strict orders to not put too much effort into athletic pursuits, since I mean… I’m a demigoddess. That’s not even a brag, it’s a fact of life, and I sorta wish it wasn’t - but yeah, practical effects, I’m strong and swift and tough as nails and that’s just scratching the surface, so obviously facing off against mortal kids in school and sports was no actual contest. It was sort of a lot of fun to just quietly excel in a safe place, but I guess I wasn’t born for that. The fact is - as I recorded in your predecessor, dear diary, which ran out of pages - my Grandmother basically overruled my mother and convinced her to take me on as a sidekick, entirely to make sure I was prepared when it became my turn. She’d thought I was too young, I’d agreed with my mom for once, and instead we both got berated to the point that I was Liberteen after a secret swearing-in ceremony. I do want to tell you the details of it, but I’m sworn to secrecy, and I can’t describe it to even you! Suffice it to say, it was a uniquely American experience, and - despite not entirely enjoying how patriotic I have to be sometimes - I don’t actually regret the experience. Also - and tell no one this - being my mom’s sidekick wasn’t so bad. I actually learned quite a lot, not to mention it sure beat being stuck in school. Which is one of several reasons why me having to attend one as the new Columbia is somewhat annoying... quote:What’s the greatest accomplishment of your legacy?  Cataclysm 6.6.5. People on the internet like to snark that Columbias only lookout for American interests, but that’s manifestly not true. My grandmother may be cantankerous and my mom’s certainly overbearing, but one thing they’ve taught me that I’ll always admire - and try to embody, legacy or not - is that everyone single person deserves to be safe, satisfied, and free. My Grandmother gained her powers after a particularly heroic demonstration, literally embodying the American Spirit - and the rest of us have tried to live up to her since then. It was Early 20XX, back before interdimensional crossover crises were a cliche occurrence. Having conquered another entire universe, a genocidal robot invaded our dimension, the nexus of which was of /course/ centered around Earth, and a genuine disaster befell Earth. Heroes bickered with heroes over trivial misunderstandings while an insane number of aliens, robots, and alien robots invaded our dimension. And who should put a stop to it? My totally normal Grandmother. All American Girl - her name at the time - snuck through the Alien Starfortress, though I’m pretty sure she had help (her tales are unreliable and prone to exaggeration, like surfing down a stack of money). The essential details are that, in the crucial moment while other heroes failed, she flung herself forward sword in hand ready to die to protect her friends and the planet Earth… and yet, she lived. Not only did she live, she bonded with the spirit of America there. And not only that, she delivered the killing blow - turns out Cataclysm wasn’t shielded against Gods. Poor design, in my opinion, but there you have it. Don’t get me wrong, my mom’s probably done more raw good than my grandmother has. She’s been a pillar of the heroic community for two decades and counting, and I can only hope to live up to both of their examples (despite not asking to). But, dear diary? Between the two, I kinda prefer my grandmother… and that’s awful of me, right? quote:How does the public perceive your legacy? quote:Schools often use the term legacy to refer to the sibling or offspring of a former student? My mom, on the other hand, attended afterwards. First in her class in both practical and academic exercises - no, I’ve never been reminded of that by any of her friends as I prepare to attend the Academy, why do you ask? - she basically set the mold for model students, a mold I am overtly expected to live up to, which isn’t easy at all. I mean, I *do* have all these phenomenal powers, but at least she knew who she wanted to be… just between us dear diary, I don’t have her conviction. Actually, that’s not true. I know who I want to be… I just know that it’s impossible. C’est la vie I suppose. quote:Not only do the others bearing the same name expect the Legacy to live up to past versions, but the school and teachers do too? Even my hopefully soon-to-be classmates think so. I’ve already received multiple messages from other prospective Phoenix Academy students informing me they can’t wait to work with me, entirely based on the reputation of my foremothers. Meanwhile, me? I really wish I could just *not* be a heroine for a day. Seriously, I never asked for any of this, but just because I was born who I was I have to save everybody forever? Can’t I have a day off? quote:How does your legacy tie into your reasons for being a hero? I wish I wasn’t Columbia. The New Columbia. That sounds awful, and I know it - I mean, do you know how many people would kill for my powers (not that they should)? As previously mentioned, I am a straight up demigoddess - about time America had some - and consequently, I can understand people envying me. I can fling buildings at people, run faster than sound, ignore attacks that would fell mortals, and I did nothing to earn any of it - I was born this way. Which is just the thing. Having the powers I have, being able to do what I can do compared to most… how selfish is it of me to wish for anything but to protect others? My mom and grandma both accepted their responsibility, and they’re the only family I have to take examples from, and yet even with both of them teaching me directly I’m still hesitant. A lifetime of enemies and conflict and never being able to relax - I understand how much good I could do, but I’m just not sure I’ll be able to handle it. quote:Why do you care about your classmates? quote:Hero Name: Columbia (the third), formerly Liberteen quote:Legacy Rauri fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Dec 20, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 23:46
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 Agent Sato, the Soldier (Katsu Sato) quote:What tragedy or disaster led to you gaining your abilities? When I was younger, a fight broke out near my home. Supers and villains fighting each other like always. But something went wrong. An explosion hit my home, and my parents didn't make it. I did though. Just barely. Lost my arm, leg, and eye on the right side of my body. But I hung onto life long enough for some of the supers to realize what happened and bring me to a hospital. Always have been a tough kid. And A.E.G.I.S. heard about my situation and offered to replace the body parts I lost. I begged them to let me join, and they had a lot of meetings with me to determine if I would be eligible for training. In the end they figured yes, and here I am. They gave me training and some tech to enhance what I'm already good at. quote:What inspired you to officially join A.E.G.I.S.? I didn't have much to go back to. And they helped me when I thought no one else would. I'm happy to spend my life keeping the citizens of Halcyon safe and to help A.E.G.I.S. keep the world safe. quote:What does A.E.G.I.S. do for the world that no one else can? Working together in a way most heroes don't. Most of them just do what they want. Being part of such a large organization lets the people of A.E.G.I.S. focus on and solve problems with far better efficiency. They have programs for helping out ordinary citizens like I used to be, they can identify what heroes need and deliver it to them, and they are very good at keeping tabs on what super villains do. Right now they want to examine Phoenix Academy and make sure it's doing what it says it'll do, how it can be improved, and if the former villains who work there are up to anything. So they enrolled me into it. quote:Who, outside of A.E.G.I.S. and the team, connects you to the civilian world? Rufina Santiago is...my friend I think. Part of what A.E.G.I.S. wanted in my training was to be among civilians, so until I came to Phoenix Academy I was in regular school. I met her there, and she seemed to like talking to me. It's a little hard for me to talk to people normally, but I suppose that's why A.E.G.I.S. wanted me to do that in the first place right? She would talk about the heroes of Halcyon and what I thought of them. I remember one time she asked if any of them wish for a normal life and I said that the best thing they could do was make that sacrifice for the greater good. That anyone with powers could help change the world for the better if they wished, and they should. She simply sid "That's a lot to think about" which seemed unusual to me, until I came here, we met and I found out she's Shooting Star, the hero with cosmic powers. She was surprised to learn that I'm not only a hero but working for A.E.G.I.S. and said "That actually explains quite a bit about you." I think she was joking. quote:Why do you care about the team? They are like me. We are all working together to make the world a better place, and with A.E.G.I.S. assisting our efforts we surely will be able to do just that. quote:
Heliotrope fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Dec 16, 2018 |
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Dec 13, 2018 23:48
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  (Except imagine she has a pair of bunny-ears on her) The 5'0" Wonder, Rabbit Punch!, the Beacon Theme Song Alternate Theme Man oh man. I never thought in a million, billion years that I'd ever get to attend Phoenix Academy! Someone like me actually made it in! Can ya believe it!? It's, like, a dream come true! Yo! The name's Riley, but you can call me by my hero name, Rabbit Punch! I love fighting, eating, and small, cute, fluffy animals! And speaking of small, don't let my size fool ya! I might be tiny compared to (most) of ya, but these fists of mine still pack a heavy punch! And while I ain't got any fancy powers, I got plenty of GUTS and a fiery spirit that won't stop burning! They don't call me the The 5'0" Wonder for nothing! quote:• How did you gain your skills? I ain't got any formal training, if that's what you're wondering about. I'm all self-taught, and I've got most of what I learned from watching other folks fight! Ya see, back when I was living in my ol' neighborhood, it was just me, my Ma, and my two younger siblings, Randy and Casey. Ma, being a single parent raising three kids, was always busy with work so she could provide for us, so while Ma wasn't around, it was up to me, as the oldest, to take care of my siblings, so that's what I did! I toughened myself up, and gave the business to anyone who tried to start any trouble for my family! But that ain't all I got. I got a super power of my own! Kinda. Sorta. Okay, it actually ain't much, but it's something, alright!? See, I can actually "enhance" myself, and give myself a bit of a boost. I've got this energy inside of me, y'see, and all I gotta do is concentrate that energy on the limb I wanna enhance, and once I've done that, I can run faster, jump farther, or hit harder! Only problem is that it takes a lot out of me. Like, a lot. Ya know that feeling after a heavy work-out, where you're whole body's feeling tired and soar, and you're all exhausted? It's like that, 'cept 10x worse, and ya get really hungry. I gotta eat a whole buffet worth of food just to recharge myself after I use my power! Aside from that? Training. Lots of training. And sometimes I like to join tournaments just for funsies. Hah! I should tell ya about that one open tournament I joined someday! It was a whole lotta fun, and I got to fight, and even beat, the reigning champ! It was a great time, and that's where I got my title from, too! quote:• When did you first put on your costume? One thing ya gotta know about me; I don't like sitting back and doing nothing when folks are in trouble, no matter how big the threat is. That ain't who I am. So when Grimjaw came crashing in, and started causing trouble, ya better believe I jumped in to try to stop him! That was the day I was wearing the hero costume my siblings made for me, too, so imagine his surprise when he saw a girl in a boxer outfit, wearing a pair of bunny ears, run up to him and sock him in the jaw! ...It didn't actually do much, though. Grimjaw's tough. Way tougher than me, and it'd take one hit from him to take me down. I was taking on someone who was twice my size and power, but I still had one thing over him; speed. I dodged and weaved through his attacks, hitting him with as many enhanced strikes as I can, like a hornet stinging a lion. Hah! Ya should've seen it! He couldn't land a single hit on me, and it was making him so mad! Mad enough to slip up and give me the chance to land a finishing blow! I focused every single last reserve of energy into my right hand, and hit him with my super special finishing strike! The Star Uppercut! An' just like that, he was out like a light, and so was I. It was a double knock out, but at least I stopped him. When I came to, I was laying in my bed back home, and I heard Ma talking to someone. She was talking to this really fancy-looking lady. Turns out, that fancy lady? Her name is Anastasia Josephine Ainsworth, the current principal of Phoenix Academy, and she was talking to my ma about letting me into the academy! Apparently she was really impressed with the way I handled Grimjaw, and she saw a lot of potential in me! And when she asked if I wanted to join, you better believe I said yes! She even offered to help support my family while I was studying there! From what other folks have told me, Ms. Ainsworth rarely ever does anything like that. She only does it for folks she see's 'real' potential in, and, well, now that I'm here, I ain't gonna let her down! quote:• Who, outside of the team, thinks you shouldn’t be a superhero? There are a few folks here who don't like the idea of someone 'normal' being here, but It don't bother me much. I'm used to being underestimated, and they can say what they want, it ain't gonna change the fact that I'm here, and they gotta deal with it now. But there was this one, really intense-looking girl, Akari, walked up to me while I was walking down the hallway, and then she tried to hit me with a flaming kick! I dodged, but barely, and I was all ready to throw down, but she stopped, and looked at me, with this really intense expression, and just said, "People like you don't belong here," and then she said she'll "show me my place," and then she just turned around, and walked off. Ever since then, Akari, or Firebird, as they call her, hasn't tried attacking me again, but she's made it very clear, on multiple occasions, that she thinks me being here is a "mistake," and that I was nothing but a "joke." She's apparently one of the rising superstars of the academy, and and apparently she's from some rich and important family or whatever, but does she have to be such a big jerk!? What the heck's her deal!? If she wants to throw down, then I'll gladly thrown down with her, and then I'll show her how much of a "joke" I am! quote:• Why do you try to be a hero? Yo, I ain't trying to be a hero, I am a hero! I don't care what Akari and those other folks say about me, I'm here now, and that means I've got something. Ma, Randy, Casey, Ms. Ainsworth, and a few others I've met, they all believe in me, and I ain't gonna let a single of 'em down! I'll train, and train, and train some more, and push myself to the limits, so I can be the best hero I can be! This lil' rabbit's gonna hop her way to the stars, and there ain't anyone who's gonna stop her! quote:• Why do you care about the team? Uhhhh cuz they're awesome? Come on, do I really need a reason? Look, I ain't all about training and fighting. I like making new friends, too, and I've made a few my time here! And just being around all these amazing folks just makes me want to be better, and it's a ton of fun hanging around 'em! ...And, well, one of them is really cute, and... y'know, I really like being around 'em, and, uh, I've sorta been trying to ask 'em out, but, I, uh... kinda... have a hard time talking around them... Can you... can you not tell them I said that? Please? It's... sorta embarrassing. It's not like I'm nervous or anything. Ha ha no! Why would I ever be nervous!? It ain't like I'm absolutely terrified that they won't like me back! Ha ha ha ha... ha ha... ha... ha... I'm just... going to go to that corner over there now... quote:Hero Name: Rabbit Punch Tardzilla fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jan 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2018 23:48
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  Cascade the Nova quote:
quote:Hero Name: Cascade Not Operator fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Dec 17, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 00:09
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Blueshift, The Scion So, yeah, let's just get it out there in the open. My mom is Queen Catastrophe of Barituros, First of the Nth, Conqueror of yadda yadda yadda. No, I am not Princess Catastrophe or any such nonsense. My name is Sara Trychineb. Yes, I know, it's Welsh. Yes, the Barituros Islands are off the coast of El Salvador. It's a long story. Hell, this whole thing is a long story. Look, you don't know you're the kid of a supervillain when you're still just a kid. I mean, she's just Mom at that point. Yes, she's rich and has robot butlers and sometimes dresses up in red power armor with a crown and a cape, but I've never had a parent that didn't wear power armor. I mean, I don't know my dad. Or who he is. Hell, I might be a clone or made in a lab or something. Anywho, it wasn't until I was like 11 that it REALLY hit me how weird it was. Playing soccer, like everyone does there. Mom was big on competition, I had to be good. The best. I got blocked by this girl. I tripped. Not really her fault, but I got up and shoved her. I knew the red flag was coming, she would get the free kick... but I did it anyway. But the flag didn't come. Everybody not playing just stopped, and looked at the ref. And the ref looked at my mom. And she shook her head. A flag was thrown... on Maria. For tripping me. I think, in her own way, that was my punishment for losing my temper. The red flag I could have taken. Seeing the terror in everyone's eyes... that shook me. After that, I started paying attention. I started snooping. I knew there were places I wasn't allowed to go at the manor, but I'd never made any real attempt to sneak in. Plus most of them have retinal scanners anyway. Took me a bit, but I finally figured out how to get past it. I found one of the old Edmund models (Edmund is our butler), and pulled the bluetooth unit out of it. A little modification and a couple of triple As and I could pass as one of the Edmunds to the scanners. I found her research labs, the jet hanger, a dozen research labs, her library, her OTHER library (Apparently if you keep spellbooks next to regular books, the magic rubs off and Wizard of Oz flying monkeys show up and throw poop all over.), and then... I found the cells in the sub-basement. With skeletons in them. I freaked out, ran out screaming, and she caught me. I thought she'd be madder, but she just hugged me. She told me her side of the story... and got me my own keycard. She taught me. Those were couple of years were the best. We were close, really close, for the first time. She taught me magic, how to solder circuitry, even how to design a circuit that can hold runic magic. Most magic doesn't play well with electronics, you know. Runic is one of the few stable enough. Anyway, I learned a lot. I took my place by her side, helped rule Barituros. The "The Accident" happened. Sara holds out her arm, and forms a fist with her hand. It shifts, becoming larger, metal, clawed. After a moment, it shifts again, to a blade, long and slender. Then a cylinder with a yellow glow coming out of the end of it. Then it's her hand again. Mom was doing some work with nanotech, adaptive armor and weaponry in one, real next level poo poo. She left to check on something, and I decided to practice my lightning bolt. In the tech lab. Where magic wasn't allowed. That was like, day one stuff. Tech in the labs, magic in the library. If you're mixing them, you do it in the sanctum, it's warded and grounded to prevent mishaps. Long story short, they bonded to me. And let me tell you, that hurt. They... remade me. I am them, they are I, that sorta thing. That's also the first time I saw her as Queen Catastrophe, not my mom. You might think getting your DNA remade into 1s and 0s would be the worst part of your day, but you'd be wrong. You might also think getting the poo poo kicked out of you by your own mother would rank up there, but you'd be wrong there too. You'd... I mean... let's just say, she tried to undo it. And when she couldn't, I got timeout. In the dungeon. That's also when I learned why she's the way she is. Well, maybe not the whole why, but definitely how. After two weeks, Edmund brought me up to my room, fed me a real meal, let me sleep. The next morning... she welcomed me back from my trip. Apparently I'd been gone for a week. Asked how the soccer tournament I went to see was. Asked how I was feeling after that "nasty thing with the nanobots." She pouted when I didn't have a souvenir for her. She had completely erased the last 2 weeks. And then written over them. Not just for herself. Edmund had no memory of me being in the dungeon. There were photos of me getting on the plane, getting off again. A goddamn FC Barcelona jersey. She faked EVERYTHING. Even a receipt for the plane ticket. I'm STILL not sure if she's too ashamed to admit it or if she's actually that crazy. But it made me realize if she could pretend that never happened... how much of her glorious rise to Queen Of Barituros had been rewritten. I mean, nobody admits all their mistakes, but... It took a bit to get around the internet filter, but I got it. Being able to directly link my mind with the computer helped. I read your guys side of the story, how her falling out with Dr. Brekovich over the Nth Dimensional Research drove her insane. She went in without protection, Dr. Brekovich and his sister and all 5 lab assistants and the friggin janitor went in to save her, but she came out dark, and twisted, with demonic powers. How she claimed sovereignty over her birth nation, started a war, fought the Amazing Eight time and time again. Don't think for a SECOND there's not a bunch of propaganda in those tales, too. There's nothing demonic about the Nth Dimension or baseline magic. Yeah, it can manifest that way, but that's just the Personal Projection Effect, NOT to be confused with... Okay, little offtopic. The point is, they weren't wrong about what side she was on. I ran off not long after that. Went to see Dr. Brekovich. He's... I mean, he's not without faults, but I'm surprised he even agreed to see me. We had a talk. A lot of talks, I... kinda moved into the Octoplex Complex (But seriously, he is SO BAD at naming things! He needs to hire a PR person like, before I was born.) and learned the other side of the story. Got to meet the rest of the Eight. The twins Flame and Frost, Brickhouse, The XYZ, Amoeba, and goddamn Mighty Mite. Once a janitor, now he's saved the world a dozen times. And Dr. Brekovich's sister Janet. Calamity Jane. Also, technically another Dr. Brekovich. She actually has one more PHD than him, but for whatever reason, she lets him be the Doctor of the family. Most of them have their stories of mom, before her version of "The Accident". She was nice, funny. Wickedly funny. Harsh, but direct, and fair. And brilliant. But when they talk about how she is now... there's just fear in their voices. Janet is the worst. I've seen the footage. She ate a laser blast to the face right before a missile went off, not even 10 feet away. The XYZ was supposed to be covering her, but got attacked by a Demon Rose mom summoned. Those suckers are mean. All vines and tendrils and spikey bits. Janet really didn't like me there at first. I think it was because she knew my mom would show up. She did, I talked her down, she's freaking revised that bit of history, too. She was dropping me off at boarding school. Yeah, seriously. I know Janet still doesn't really trust me. I can't blame her, I mean the thing with my mom... and yeah, I'm also part robot, but it's all of me. I gain strength from it. I didn't lose the ability to shoot energy bolts from my hand when it happened to me, I gained it. And, there's no servo sounds in my skull when my eyes focus. I know I can never make amends for what my mom did. It's not my place. They're not my sins. But Dr. Brekovich taught me how control my body, how to be a hero, got me a place here at the Phoenix Academy. I'm still learning, still making friends, but I can be better. I can be good. quote:Look: Woman, Ambiguous, Metallic Body, Expensive Clothing, Bright Costume Relentless fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 00:21
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Interest post for me, too! Relentless is quite persuasive XD
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Dec 14, 2018 00:23
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You know what it's been a long while. I'll throw a hat in. Edit: Personally thinking either Beacon or Joined myself, I don't have any of the newer books beyond those.  "Electrifying, Jaw-Dropping, Out of this world! Passion and star power concentrated into one lithe and lethal package, it is..." ¡La Víbora, The Joined! (Partnered with Rabbit Punch, the Beacon) Isadora Fernandez is the girl who turned down a Legacy, because she found something more important to her. A worthy rival. The latest in an extensive lineage of superheroes going back for thousands and thousands of years Isadora was born into a modern day aristocratic family, with the expectation that when the time came she would inherit the title of Huitzilopochtli for herself. Yet for all the massive prestige and power that came with essentially being the mortal embodiment of a God, Isadora for reasons she never spoke about with anyone wanted nothing to do with that power or any prospect of a career as a superhero what so ever. She was naturally talented in combat sports and whether this was due to her bloodline or her own raw talent is up for debate but she was for a time a rising star in the amateur circuit; champion of a handful of youth nationals, and a clear shoe in for a spot in the Olympics. And then one day, she left it all behind to follow in her mother's footsteps to become a heroine. But not in the way that people had exactly expected her to go. • How did you and your other half become connected? "Do you know what the feeling is, when everyone around you heaps praise onto you from the moment of your birth, when you feel that you have already started at the very top of the world? At first it was great, after all arrogance is warranted when you truly are the best no? But then the joy drained out of it and it was just, dull. An undefeated streak was what I had aimed for when I first entered the circuit of mixed martial arts and that was what I had attained near the end of my career, but when I had finally gotten what I apparently wanted it wasn't as satisfying as I had expected it to be. People expect you to win, you yourself expect to win, and you go out and win, with no drama and no stakes I was left with something that felt like work rather than something I enjoyed." "And then during an open sign-up tournament in the springtime as I was warming up for the nationals, I was thoroughly and resoundingly thrashed by a no name upstart who had signed on at the last minute." "This girl, Riley Steele who just showed up 'for the funsies' as she described it drew against me, the undefeated champion of the region in the very first rounds of the tournament. I had come at her like the viper of my namesake, a clean decisive strike to take down this girl who had no traditional martial arts training what so ever. And I lost. And rather then feel enraged or upset I felt strangely elated, and I knew what this was in the end." "I had found a worthy opponent, and I wanted to defeat her." • Who or what did you have to give up because of your connection? "Eventually I found this girl Riley Steele again, she had been selected to enroll on at the Phoenix Academy. Regular humans who get offered enrolment at the world's premier hero college are rare enough to begin with, but the fact that she had not even gotten in through the Rising Star lottery, but through the recommendation of the Anastasia Josephine Ainsworth? The fact that the current sitting principle of the world's most prestigious superhero academy had decided that she was strong enough for the task at hand only made me want to meet this Riley girl again even more." "And like her, I had an 'in' through the channels that wouldn't be normally available to someone who did not possess traditional superpowers. Mi madre was one of the pros in the big leagues and she had always been nudging me towards a possible career in the super-heroism business, which I had turned down the past few times since I had a burgeoning career as a professional athlete to attend to, and at the time that was more important to me than the legacy." "But in order for me to follow Riley Steele I had to abandon that career and take mother up on her offer to let me enrol at Phoenix. Even though I had not inherited her powers as of yet I was still on the level for most of the 'mundane' candidates inducted into the ranks of Academy before so there wasn't much of an obstacle for my entrance." "Although things got a little dicey, when Mother found out exactly why I had a sudden change of heart." • Apart from your powers, what keeps you together? "It is simple. I had found someone who for the first time in what felt like years, is not someone beneath me like a lot of previous opponents I had faced, nor were they someone who is so far above me I could never hope to challenge them like my mother, but an actual equal. Not just an equal in combat but someone who actually understands the joy of fighting a strong opponent, someone who I can fully co-operate and trust. Someone who I can actually talk to as a friend." "I have spent nearly the entirety of my life separate from the rest of the world in one form or another. I was maybe 6 years old before I actually left the family estate, I was taught mostly by home tutors brought in from the outside on my mother's orders, she could not have her only child put at risk by any of the enemies arranged against her she told me. Even when I grew old enough to be self sufficient and engage in my professional MMA career I still had her servants around at all times, and could never escape their watch. I was the heiress of the family Legacy, and everyone around me knew it, and everyone talked to me with that in mind." "Riley doesn't, she is very blunt and direct in the way it speaks. And after many years of dealing with people who were either envious, overly respectful or just would avoid eye contact as if merely gazing upon me would sear their eyes, it was just satisfactory to have someone call me 'Izzie' rather than 'Young Madam' or 'My lady' or 'Isadora Maria Alejandra Magdalena Fernandez-Marquez y Ortega', much to the consternation of the help of course." • Someone outside the team thinks you’d be better off going your own way. Who are they and why do they think that?  The current Huitzilopochtli AKA: Maria Fernandez, Mother, Mi Madre "The earlier incident of things getting a little dicey... Mother had been intending to hand the reigns of her power off to me for a while, she had been the Feathered Serpent incarnate for many, many years and the power of a god is not something that one can hold onto forever, she knows this and she had intended for me to carry on the family legacy when I had completed my full induction in the academy proper." "And when she found out I had joined Phoenix Academy to be the partner of an almost powerless human, she wasn't as supportive as I hoped she would be. She did not get angry because that is not something she would project onto her own daughter, but she was disappointed, and I honestly might have preferred the anger it would feel less sore I am sure." "But... The mantle of Huitzilopochtli, it unnerves me. I remembered mother before she had taken the mantle and when it fell to her it became very difficult to tell where Maria Fernandez the person started and where Huitzilopochtli the Aztec God of War ended. She became less human as time went on at least that is what it felt like to me, her only daughter. And that kind of power that physically and mentally changes who you are as a person is something I am incredibly weary of, and that is something I have told only one other person up until now." • Why do you care about the team? "Because despite the efforts and abilities of myself and Riley, we are still human with strictly human limitations. The Academy has the open hand policy to those who do not possess the natural born superpowers or any magical/technological equivalent of their peers, but there is still a not insubstantial amount of people who do not consider 'natural' heroes like us on the same level as those with 'actual' super powers." 'Manojo de pinchazos' Isadora mutters as she spits on the ground "So even if I hate to admit it myself, we need them. There are things we excel at that they cannot do well, and there are things they excel at that we cannot do well, and so the team functions well by combining our strengths and mitigating our weaknesses yes? Whether I like them or not is up to them however, just because I work with you doesn't mean I have to like you unconditionally." • There’s no better place to both be defined as a single entity, and to find a way to differentiate yourselves. Which way are you going to push? Do you join the same Clique/Club, or different? WIP quote:Hero Name: La Vibora TheNabster fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Dec 23, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 00:24
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I'm a simple one. I see Masks, I Masks.
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Dec 14, 2018 00:38
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Halimede Hi! I'm Halimede 1932/C....oh, yes, yes, names. You don't have designators yet. Funny. Alright, hello, I'm Halimede, and I'm FROM THE FUTURE! The 29th century, specifically. It's pretty wonderful! For me, anyway. I'm from this super cute planet called Diri, a paradise world out in the Sagittarius Far Region, about twenty-five thousand light-years from the Human Cradle. My ancestors settled it as a research planet dedicated to forging a brighter future for all. quote:• How did you travel from the future to the present day? Through a portal. Oh, not a standard warp portal - the Esoteric Physics Institute adapted one to work in the time dimension as well, which is super harder than you'd think. It's a lot smaller than a normal gate, since it takes a ton more energy. Which means I kind of had to jump through.... quote:• What keeps you from returning to the future? Do you see any neutronium reinforcement struts or dark matter energy conduits or quantum stabilizers around? Nope. I knew it was part of the deal. The Institute will come get me. When I'm done. I think. quote:• Why don’t you have perfect recollection of the future? You're really not supposed to go through a portal unprotected. You can survive it - obviously - but it's not great. I blew most of my medkit healing up after, and that's just my body. It *did* give me some powers, though, so that's kind of cool. quote:• What is the most important part of your future that you want to avert? Mmmm. It's bad. So when I'm from, the Orion League covers most of the galaxy, a shining beacon of peace and prosperity that includes millions of races and quadrillions of beings. Not that getting there was *easy*, but....well, it's the kind of future you 21sters write about in your most optimistic fiction. Even so, there's discontents. Troublemakers. Evil people. There's...a group, the Galactic Dawn. Terrorists, lunatics, fanatics. When we were testing the portal at EPI, we started seeing discrepencies, weird glitches, and when we traced it down, we discovered somebody else had invented a temporal warp portal too! Galactic Dawn has been seeding their members deep in the past, thinking that they can change history to put Humans on top and exterminate all the other beings. Or enslave them. Fanatics are never really clear. quote:• Why must you join this team specifically to achieve your mission’s goals? quote:• You only attend school because it plays some role in your overall quest regarding the future. What is that role? Why’d you agree to come here? Because we need a team of heroes to root out the infiltrators, and, honestly, we couldn't be sure any established hero *wasn't* a plant. But students? No, they'd never plant their agents in a hero school - doesn't get them enough power fast enough. Now I just need to hope this team is up to the challenge. The Harbinger posted:Name: Halimede Platonicsolid fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 00:45
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  Concerto the Delinquent Ol’ Cade Harper, coulda just taken a music scholarship to some other school that wasn’t full of superpowered bigshots and brats. Could have lived fast, died young, name in the headlines as the artist of a generation gone too soon. Would’ve been a fun ride. Short ride. But fun. Yet here I am. Not doing any of that. Instead I’m being told, “Powers aren’t to be used for selfish ambitions. They are to be used for the sake of the people.” Go tell that to all the villains around town, not me, numbskulls! Sure, I’ve played my fair share of pranks with these powers I got, but ain’t like anyone ever got hurt from them. Well, never badly hurt anyways. I’m nothing compared to what most of the kids around here can do, really. Just look at that Bones girl taking out that deathbot. Cool video and all, but imagine what she could do if she turned those fists of her against “the people.” Should be keeping an eye on her, not me, far as I’m concerned. But no. Start one little fight with your powers, and you get sent here, whether you want to or not. All right, so it was a school-wide riot that left more than handful in the hospital. But hey, teach told me to put on the performance of a lifetime, to make the crowd really feel our music. That it was real important to administration that the band put on a good show this year. So I did. Ain’t my problem if they got more than they bargained for when I just followed orders like a good boy. quote:How did you get your powers? I was, in fact, born this good. A musical genius, they called me, could play anything by ear after listening to it once. And hey, it’s true, what can I say. I know jack all about reading sheets, proper composition, pitch, scale, you know, all the technical bits that’s usually considered important. But I can play. Anything, anytime, anywhere. Heck, I sing too, so I don’t even need an instrument to strut my stuff. What a genius, am I right? Perfect for rising up the billboards as some pop trash celebrity. Yeeep, that was the plan. Then turns out, I had more oomph in my performance than I realized. Officially, it’s recorded as “emotion control”, but let’s be real, it’s manipulation. I can hum and make your eyes water, tap my feet and make your heart throb, and if get my hands on something that can make some proper noise? Well, you saw what happened at my old school. A battle march that marches you right on into battle. Like poetry. Completely unsubtle, bat to the face poetry. But poetry. Right, and there’s “illusions” on my powers list too, ain’t there? Same deal. I sing of open fields and blooming flowers, you start seeing those around you. Feel, touch, smell, I’m hitting all your senses. Dark skies, dark hearts, darkness all around you? Bye bye, vision. And so on. Pretty cool, yeah? But dangerous, or so administration tells me. ...Guess they ain’t wrong. Let’s just say I don’t play love songs anymore. Anger, sadness, fear, hope, joy, I don’t mind messing around with those. Even hate has its uses. But love? That’s a hosed up emotion to put in people. I can control my powers well enough now that I don’t think I could induce it by accident anymore, but… well, no reason to risk it. Plenty of other avenues to screw with people’s heads. quote:What do you do for fun? Guess. No, really, guess. I don’t only listen to and play music, if that’s what you’re wondering. A lot of the time, yeah. But not all the time. People watching, that’s always fun. Lot of different types coming and going in this city. People with ambitions, people who just try to get by from day to day. People who are going to be someone, people who are just gonna end up nobodies. It’s fun to try and guess who’s who. Besides that, hanging out, seeing the sights, normal kid stuff. I ain’t anyone special beneath the talent. But drat, do I got some talent. And yeah, I do take my powers for walksies now and again. Not as much anymore, what with all the rules and regulations and supers that could punch a hole in my chest if they wanted. But you know, sometimes you just want to start some drama. Hum a few notes, get a happy couple spitting venom at each other for a few minutes. Make a known bully break down in tears in front of everyone. Get a kid the nerves to confess to someone waaaay above their level. That kind of drama. Messed up, right? Fun though. quote:Who, outside the team, thinks better of you than you do?  That would be Maestro, and if you’re wondering, no, I didn’t intentionally try to match his hero name or anything. I just told him to write down whatever cause I could care less, and he came up with Concerto. Said it suited me. A solo performance, sometimes opposed to the rest of the orchestra, sometimes coordinated, sometimes interdependent. Don’t know about that, but I do like my solos, so I suppose there’s worse. As for what he’s like, four words: pain in the rear end. Always with that smug rear end expression, like he knows you better than you do. Which, well, he probably does. I don’t get it exactly, but his power lets him… read people, I guess. Lets him string you along however he wants, like he’s conducting you, get it? Well, I don’t know what he saw in me that made him so keen on mentoring me, but I don’t like it. No thanks! If I gotta be here, I’ll do it my way. Don’t need someone trying to play me like a fiddle. quote:Why do you try to be a hero? I’d probably have gotten arrested or put on a list or something if I didn’t come here. Not that I regret starting that mess back at my old school, cause man that was one hell of a show. But they offered me a way out without having to deal with any legal issues or an angry mob of my peers, so I figure a few years of “rehabilitation” and charity work is worth not having that hassle. After that though, I’m out! It’s fun playing hero and all, and I admit, if you like drama like I do, hanging around supers is a good way to find it, but all in all, it’s just more hassle than it’s worth. Even if I get to use my powers in far more creative and fulfilling ways than before, and even if every day is like a brand new adventure, and, uh, even if you meet all kinds of folk with some real pizazz in this line of work it… isn’t worth... the stress? Just a few years of all this, and then it’s back to the same old, same old… Hm. Let me get back to you on this one. quote:Why do you care about the team? Cause I like drama, and I like making a show, and there ain’t nothing better for those two interests like hanging around a bunch of superpowered, hot-headed, idiotic teens. Plus, it’s just easier to let loose around them. And by that, I of course mean I don’t gotta feel any guilt about screwing around with their heads since they can get me back with their powers. We’re all freaks here! Fair’s fair, right? The Delinquent posted:Name: Cade Harper TheFireMagi fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Dec 16, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 03:00
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 Cernunnos, The Newborn  A.E.G.I.S. Debriefing Report on subject #D3455-3 Subject Name: Cernunnos "Cary" Devosta Metahuman Status: Confirmed; Abilities include plant-like body capable of rapid growth and reduction; other abilities unknown; will remain under investigation. Legal Status: Temporarily detained, release and probation pending outcome of hearing #6595 regarding charges against Dr. Julian Devosta. Assigned Agents: Mr. T-184, Mr. J-332 [Begin transcript] Agent T: "Hey there son, I'm sorry for putting you through all this, are you comfortable? Can I get you something to drink or snack on?" Subject C: "I'm comfortable in here, I suppose, the lights are harsher than what I am used to, sir. But I am quite thirsty and would like some water if you have it, please. Is my father going to be okay? I am quite worried." Agent J: "Hey, uh, T, could you grab the kid a water real quick? Thanks." *Door opens and closes* Agent J: "Now, I wish I could tell you what's going to happen with your... father right now. He has been detained by our agents, and right now were trying to figure out if your uh, dad, committed any crimes by creating you. And I want you to make sure you know that you aren't in trouble and we're not here to hurt you, we just want to make sure the city is safe before we can set you free." Subject C: "Oh, well I sure hope that I'm not a crime nor any danger, sir. Now that I'm growing up I want to be the best person I can be and I hope my good behavior can clear my father's name, if that is possible." Agent J: "To be honest, I'm not sure if there's a rule against just making a person just using plant matter and you seem like a nice kid, but I want to confirm a few things, as uh, I hope I'm not being rude, you are a bit of an unusual case." Subject C: "Oh, that's not rude at all sir, Papa tells me how unique I am all the time. I just had my first birthday 43 days ago and my father has already let me talk with real teenagers on-line!" Agent J: "Exactly, according to our reports and your creator's initial interviews, you were created as a seed in his lab, and then planted underground secretly out in Halcyon Park, where it says you were growing underground for...3 years? Can you confirm that son?" Subject C: "I do not know how long I gestated, sir, but I do remember being pulled out of the ground on my birthday and Papa saying something about three long years, so I guess it must have been about that long, sir." Agent J: "Alright I can check that one off...So, moving on, I gotta ask, do you have any idea why your father created you? In situations like this, we usually assume that you are some type of human weapon, if you'll excuse me for being blunt." Subject C: "No apology needed sir, I haven't been around long but I have wondered the same thing myself, I can tell that I was much more difficult to create than a normal boy. I looked up my Papa on the internet one night, and I found out that my Mama and my brother died in an accident before I was born. Papa talks about Mama all the time and how she would have loved to see me grow up, I wish I could have met her. Papa has never told me about my brother though, I am afraid that asking why might hurt him." *Door opens and closes* Agent T: "Here's your water kid. So you've only been around only a year and you're this big? That doc must have some next-level tech to accelerate growth like this. What's he been feeding you, kid? Subject C: "Actually sir, I get most of my energy from the sun by growing leaves and roots, but I can eat some types of normal food when I can't get my sun. And yes, I have been growing fast. It was very fast over the first 6 months after I was born, but it has gotten slower since then, soon Papa says I'll start growing just like a real boy!" Agent J: "That's impressive! Can I ask some questions about your uh, physical nature? You seem to have a body made from, uh, what's it say here...some sort of flexible wood? And I understand that we had to..uh... remove some small animals from your person before you came into the facility?" Subject C: "Yes, those are my little buddies, they live around in the park around my father's lab and sometimes I make room for them in my body or on my head when they need it. Papa says I am half-tree and half-human, he says I have the best of both worlds! I can live outside like a tree or inside like a person. Right now I like the outside better but if I'm going to be a real boy then I guess I'll have to get used to the inside, but if it means I get to talk to people and make friends then I'll do it! He also says he designed my brain to stop growing so fast when I got to be as smart as an adult so that I can fit in. But, Sir? Will the real kids be scared of me because of the way I...am? So far I have just talked to them online and I am scared they won't like me when they know what I look like. I love hearing about their different experiences and friends. And music! I love it so much and the first thing I want to do when I'm free to go out into the world is to go to a concert with real people!" Agent J: "That's great to hear. Hey uh...Cernoo-uh, Cary? Is it? Don't be too worried, If there's any place in the world where it's okay to look like a tree, it's Halcyon city. In fact, I know that the director told me that he has a contact at the Phoenix Academy, I might be able to get you in school there. It would be a perfect place for a special youngster like you. If you keep being polite just the way you are, you'll make friends there." Agent T: "Well that's good news because I've been looking over the test results that just came back, and it looks like your physical and mental results are roughly equal to an advanced adolescent, and more importantly, the lab boys concluded that your body contains no toxins or pathogens that are a threat to the city, so that means you're free to go. And we can see that you're a nice kid and that as long as you keep your nose clean, Agent J and I will put in a good word at your Pop's hearing." Agent J: "You got it kid, as long we can see that you're not some type of crime, we'll make sure your dad doesn't get dinged too hard. Though, who knows, we might have to write some new laws about life creation if the Doc's methods can produce an impressive specimen like yourself. You're a very nice boy and I don't see why you can't join society." Subject C: "Thank you, sir. It's good to hear that I can go, but I'm still worried about my father, but I have heard of Phoenix Academy! I would love to meet all the different students, thank you for trying to get me in there!" Agent J: "Alright I think we can end this interview here, go outside into the next room for more processing, you'll talk with a social worker to figure out where you'll be staying in the meantime." *Door opens and closes* Agent T: "Christ, [name redacted], I'm glad that kid is so friendly, he could be real trouble. Have you seen these numbers? The spontaneous growth potential alone is ridiculous." Agent J:"...You ain't fuckin' with me, this kid could be dangerous. As far as we know he's just a weapon who learned how to be polite and friendly. After all, he has seen the internet, I wouldn't blame him if he thought we were all evil cause of the poo poo on there. I'll make sure my people at the academy keep a close watch." Agent T: "Very good. I'll really put the screws to the Doc to see what's behind this. Why didn't he share this work with anyone? It's a little suspicious. The dead wife and son thing could be a sob story, who knows, all I know is that biotech this advanced could be a game-changer." [End transcript] The Newborn posted:Hero Name: The Dryad Dracula Factory fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Jan 6, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2018 03:12
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Eh, nevermind.
Dawgstar fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 03:58
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 Princess B the Outsider quote:Real Name: B'zzzz'a'brrrzzrz'rrzzz'zrzrz Plutonis fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Dec 15, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 03:58
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  You must have heard about the wonder substance, Vitalis already. It's an incredibly versatile gel that can be 'programmed' to change its own physical properties based on certain events. Armor that is light when worn, but instantly becomes denser than platinum when struck. Medicine that melds with the body to instantly close wounds or even replace lost limbs entirely. A liquid that is attracted to fire, extinguishing it without endangering a single human being. It can do all of those things. But... have you never wondered where it's coming from? quote:Who changed you? The Ascendance Cooperation. Yes, that Megacorp. The one who rose to the top of the food chain due to Vitalis. These bastards are always looking for ways to improve their profit maker, morals be damned. Two months ago, I suddenly woke up in a lab. They had just kidnapped me, one of the many homeless people Halcyon likes to forget exist. That's where hell started for me. I was constantly dragged around and injected with stuff. I had no idea what they pumped into me, but it hurt like hell. Every time they did it, I nearly had to puke. It felt like my body was reassembling itself on me. Given what Vitalis can do, it probably did. But it got so much worse. One day, They brought me to a vat filled with the stuff. I was ordered to jump into the liquid, but I hesitated. So they just pushed me into it. That is the day I died. The experiment they used me as a guinea pig for was as simple as it was damning - they wanted to see what happened if you replaced every single part of a human body with replicas out of Vitalis. When I fell into the liquid, I could feel my entire body sting like hell. I was dissolved. The only thing that remained was my consciousness, stuck in the liquid. quote:How did you escape from them? As I was unable to keep my shape back then, the experiment was deemed a failure. They ended up draining the pool and storing my new liquid body in containment. For further testing, of course. I only had my senses of touch and hearing left at that point. A few days after that, all hell broke loose in the facility. A strange noise was droning on in my head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQHGqJIt1fc Outside of my containment glass, it was a panicked mess. There was a lot of yelling. 'IT ESCAPED!' 'SHOOT THEM, NOW!' 'DON'T LET THAT MONSTER OUT OF THIS FACILITY!'. They were clearly panicked. A lot of gunfire followed, accompanied by screaming. But suddenly, it was silent. Except... for the hum. Suddenly, the metal surrounding my containment strained, causing an earpsplitting noise, and something lifted my container. After a while, the hum stopped, and the movement did as well. Then, my container shattered, causing me to gloop onto the grass below. Mere moments after, my mind was filled with hundreds of scenes at the same time. Somehow, I was able to make sense of it all. My savior revealed the truth to me. The Ascendance Cooperation was abducting the residents of another dimension to this world, in order to drain their blood. We know these residents as monsters. That is what Vitalis is. It's the very lifeblood of an alien race. Occasionally, these beings would escape. Scared and alone, they cause unintended destruction just trying to get home. And they are intelligent. It also revealed a fact to me that bothered me greatly. Because of my new body, these monsters think of me as one of their own. quote:Who, outside the team, tries to take care of you now? After I was left in the wilderness, it took me a lot of time to try and figure out my body. First, I figured out how to move. It was a very slow method of transportation. It was more flowing like a liquid than moving. I got that far, but... I had no idea how to gain my other senses back. It was by sheer happenstance that I met Silver.  An adult hero with powerful telekinesis and telepathy, they had picked up on my mental distress while they were travelling back home from a dispatch. After I explained my situation to her, she scooped me up and brought me along to Halcyon. Ever since, I've been staying at her place. Only due to her telepathic assistance was I able to recreate a mostly human body. She spent a lot of time after work studying up on the human body, and transmitting the knowledge to me. Thanks to her, I've regained the sense of sight, but I am still lacking a sense of smell and taste. I am also bad at facial expressions, which is why I usually just have a smile frozen on my face. It's somewhat creepy to tohers, so I ended up wearing a mask most of the time. It's not perfect, but I am incredibly grateful to Silver for helping me to get this far. quote:Why do you try to be a hero? I need to get a lot stronger. Ascendance Cooperation needs to be stopped. But I lack the strength to do so right now. I don't think it's possibly to rally the public against them. Vitalis is too useful. People have grown far too reliant on that drat liquid. It's also a good place to stay in the spotlight. The worst possible thing to happen is if I were to just... get disappeared. Again. I can't allow that to happen. I already 'disappeared' once. I refuse to let them get away with it again. And as much as I hate this body, it's powerful. I can freely manipulate my own physical properties to an extent. I can be as tough, stretchy, heavy, light, strong, and fast as I want to be. I can even split off pieces of myself to turn into objects, although they will melt into Vitalis if they are no longer in contact with me, and flow back to me in order to be reabsorbed. As an example, my clothes, mask, and even my weapon are all created out of my own Vitalis. As such, they are far stronger than they appear to be. quote:Why do you care about the team? It's simple. I need allies. My mortal enemy, AC, isn't going to be easy to take down. I need people to come to their senses and help me fight them. I need people I can trust. I really hope I can trust them. quote:The Bull’s playbook implies that they were somehow modified and turned into a hero. This big secret is a key to the character’s vulnerabilities. Smile's has two big weaknesses: The cold, and vibration. Vitalis is, despite its amazing potential, a liquid. As such, it is susceptible to freezing. Vitalis has a surprisingly low freezing point, at -30°C. It's one of the few things that limit its potential, and since Smile's body is nothing more than a mass of Vitalis, it affects her too. The colder it is, the more Smile will be slowed down, up until being frozen solid. It also requires concentration for Smile to maintain her human form. Strong vibrations disturb the susprisingly delicate structure of the makeshift body. As such it makes it considerably harder for her to keep her form when struck by sonic attacks and the like, usually resulting in reverting to her liquid form, which is unable to fight properly and very slow to move. Veronica's past isn't known, but the weakness to vibration has come up often enough to be public knowledge. The first time she had encountered the issue was when she was in a car with Silver, who had accidentally turned up the music too loud, reducing Veronica to a puddle. quote:If only the Bull knows their secret, who are the people at school most likely to discover it? Since AC is VERY secretive about the origin of Vitalis, there have been no knock-off products whatsoever. As such, the people that are most likely to discover Veronica's connection to AC are supergeniuses, and those with analytical powers. While there are a number of superheroes who can turn into liquid, Veronica's body has several of the distinct characteristics of Vitalis, such as the freezing point. If it were to be revealed that there was a superhero whose body consists of Vitalis, people would immediately look towards AC. quote:If the Bull’s origin is well known, does anyone at school share that origin? While the origin isn't known (yet), it has recently come to Veronica's attention that AC has essentially began selling superpowers to people. While there hasn't been a second Smile, likely after seeing what she can do, people have definitely been infused with Vitalis. Because of her ability to absorb the subtance, Veronica can tell the presence of it via touch. There are several people at Phoenix academy that have received such infusion. Most tellingly, all of them are physically based, such as super strength, super toughness, and so on. Usually, the receipients of such powers are rich people lacking severely in the responsibility department. While Veronica hasn't attempted draining the Vitalis to see what happens yet, it may be possible to remove the superpower that way... but it might also do worse. quote:Is there an adult at the school connected to the origin the Bull might want to protect? Or might want to get some answers from? Ms. Izue.  She's Phoenix Academy's foremost expert on monsters. Ms. Izue was brought in due to the recent surge in monsters, and has recently begun looking into both their physiology and their origins. As such, Veronica is very much interested in guaranteeing their safety. Thanks to consulting her, Veronica was able to discern the identity of the monster that had saved her:  Codename: Seraphim. As it turns out, her savior was noone else but monster deemed to be the highest threat of all the ones that have been identified so far. Seraphim sports freakishly strong mental powers. Her main method of fighting is the strange noise I heard back then - according to Ms. Izue, it temporarily drives people into a state of madness where they are very suggestible. Seraphim uses this to turn people into its puppets. But perhaps more worrying about Seraphim is its intelligence. Unlike most monsters who could be confused with wild animals, Seraphim has proven to be incredibly clever. Its actions are deliberate, precise, and appear to be planned. Having eluded the major powers so far, Seraphim seems to be targeting AC facilities holding monsters. Seraphim is deliberately releasing monsters whereever she goes, but to what end is not known. Hoping to be able to communicate with Seraphim, the two of them have been working together closely. quote:Hero Name: Smile Yami Fenrir fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Dec 20, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 06:12
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 Jane Bunyan AKA LumberJane  Oh hey, didn't see you down there. Sorry. You alright? Good, sorry again. They sure didn't build these halls for someone like me, y'know? Real easy to break...oh geez. Yeah, that's gonna be expensive. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself - I'm Jane Bunyan. Yeah, I guess you already knew from the news. Kinda unfair to me, I wasn't 'rampaging', I just walked out of the woods and got tangled up in some wires, and I guess the Royal Canadian Mecha Police responded and uh, shot me a bit, but that's all. I guess when you're 20 meters tall anything you do is a rampage, eh? You wanna interview me for the school paper? OK, I guess, lemme just skooch down here... quote:Backstory quote:When did you change? What caused it? quote:Who, outside of the team, is helping you understand your new body?  My uncle Perry. He's like a family historian, knows all about the Bunyan Curse and stuff. He's the biggest hipster you ever met, leans harder into the lumberjack thing than anyone. And he's on staff at the school, as an expert on 'Folk Magic'. So there goes any hope of getting away from family drama, eh? Anyway, he had to jump through a bunch of hoops with the Ethics Committee to get approval to help me, cause we're related. He's sure excited, there hasn't been a real giant Bunyan in a century. Guess I'm happy for him. quote:Why don't you just try to hide yourself away? Maybe cause I'm ten stories tall? Where the hell am I going to hide? Sorry, kinda raised my voice there. For sure though living in the woods and eating moose sounds great and all, but I guess I prefer roofs and baths, even if the roofs are all too low and my bath is an ornamental lake now. Guess I wouldn't have made a great ranger after all. quote:Why do you care about the team? Oh they seem like a swell bunch of folks, all just trying to do good and help people, y'know? I like that, and working with them is a way to have normal-ish existence as a hero instead of just traffic hazard. Plus it's nice to have friends I don't have to worry about hurting if I tread on them as well. Sorry about that earlier, by the way. quote:The Transformed: The Transformed will often be at odds with the group as a loner. But at the Phoenix Academy, there's likely a Clique of kids who feel alone and isolated. The Transformed might explore the same themes but through being caught between two social groups. Will they choose the friends who accepted them despite their looks or the ones who accepted them because they look different? I...don't put this in the paper, OK? Strictly off the record? I feel kinda bad about being put in the same category as the other 'Extreme Physical Anomaly' kids. A bunch of them have it real bad, like being turned into a living nuclear reaction, or getting uploaded into a war-bot body. There's one girl who got caught in some dimensional thing, she's basically a shattered mirror with legs. At least I recognize my reflection. I dunno if they think I'm too privileged to hang with them, but... the Transformed posted:Name: Jane Bunyan AKA LumberJane thatbastardken fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 06:48
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Platonicsolid posted:Totally interested, thinking Harbinger first, by may do an Outsider or something else entirely. It's gonna be a place for posting. Character sheets and dice rolls can be posted in separate rooms within the server. And I can organise a number of channels for specific things. Such as splitting it up by mission. Or as I have done in previous games, location. Won't be something I'm doing this time around. But it helps me keep things organised. It also allows ooc chat in a separate room as well as places for rp not related to the current mission
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Dec 14, 2018 11:39
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Arashiofordo3 posted:It's gonna be a place for posting. Character sheets and dice rolls can be posted in separate rooms within the server. And I can organise a number of channels for specific things. Such as splitting it up by mission. Or as I have done in previous games, location. Won't be something I'm doing this time around. But it helps me keep things organised. Is the Discord up now for the purposes of throwing ideas at people and/or getting a cheeky peak at playbooks I don't otherwise have? Speaking of which Tardzilla posted:
Hey buddy would you accept a tag team partner? TheNabster fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Dec 14, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 13:01
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TheNabster posted:Is the Discord up now for the purposes of throwing ideas at people and/or getting a cheeky peak at playbooks I don't otherwise have? The discord server has not been made at this time. I will post a link here when I'm ready for you all.
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Dec 14, 2018 14:23
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I'll make.... something when I get back from work.
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Dec 14, 2018 16:16
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TheNabster posted:Hey buddy would you accept a tag team partner? Sure, go for it!
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Dec 14, 2018 16:27
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Considering apping with a Brain, because man, that's a fun playbook.
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Dec 14, 2018 17:26
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E: All right, here is the concept. (Dec. 21 added music and fixed a typo): The Doomed quote:AUDIO FILE 0232E6-DELTA quote:Image: quote:Where did you first learn of your doom? *grin* All I know now is that I've got maybe a year or two left to kick his rear end and then take it easy for the rest of my time at Phoenix. quote:Where did you get your sanctuary? Oh, and I keep any interesting books on demons and such up there too, since one of them might just give me a clue about where to find a certain Doctor... quote:Why do you oppose your nemesis? *grin*... No, you tell me. All he did was cut me up and replace enough of me with gargoyle parts that I won't get to legally buy a beer or smoke weed before I get an express ticket to hell. What exactly do I have against him? ...The fact that he's probably doing it to someone else. I can deal with what is happening to me, man, but no one else deserves this. Not if I can do anything about it, anyway. quote:Who, outside of the team, is crucial to defeating your nemesis? Dr. Solomon is her enemy too, but she tells me that I can't deal with him as I am now, and that I should let her deal with it while I train...She knows I'll say this I'm sure, but I'm going to find him even if I have to piss her off going around her to do it, and I'm going to show him exactly why I'm the one he needs to worry about. quote:Why does the team matter to you? ...Naw, I'm just kidding. They're all right, maybe some of them study or train too hard, or show off a bit too much for my liking, but I'm glad to have met them, and maybe made a couple of friends before the last dance of the night. I'm not much of a talker when it comes to my situation, but I'm usually okay at listening to what they have to say. Besides, some of them might be willing to help out by sharing some of their stash with a pal. quote:Does the whole school know about the doom? Are other students scared of the Doomed? Are there teachers who think they are a danger to the students, or who want to save the Doomed? I mean, the details are kind of scarce and most people kind of stop listening at the phrase "demon organ transplant" after they've seen my face, but whatever. They can make up stories faster than I can get up to mischief, and yeah, maybe it puts people off but it's not like that matters to me when I already have a team and an important job to do. Teachers, well, they can say or do what they want but at the end of the day Ms. Jones is probably just using them to keep tabs on me. A couple of the nicer ones have said that they would be willing to listen if I wanted to talk to them about anything, but, I mean, I would rather they just look the other way if I feel like catching up on some sleep during a lecture. ... *grin* ModeWondershot fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Dec 22, 2018 |
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Dec 14, 2018 19:50
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No worries there. Plenty of people are willing to walk you through the system, plus it’s pretty straightforward in terms of core mechanics.
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Dec 14, 2018 20:33
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ModeWondershot posted:Consider me interested upon looking at the system and setting, but to be honest I have not played a game with this system before. I'm a fairly quick study and good with detail, but I want to ask people to be a bit patient with me if I have to have some rules explained to me at first, and please let me know if that inexperience is a deal-breaker. Yep, and you know where's a good place the discuss mechanics for new players? The Discord Server. Boom https://discord.gg/wft4Z32
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Dec 14, 2018 22:08
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 Dynamic, the Brain "Bright" is a useless word. The only operative term is "brighter." Defined also as "having the basic competence not to invent the world's greatest civilian prosthesis, the culmination of state of the art, only to have it used almost exclusively by murderers." You've heard of the Morgan Tactical Frame, right? The gold standard in modern cyborg combat utility, banned by international treaty for making child soldiers cost-effective? The tech that enabled Golden Galvan's return to villainy after age was supposed to have taken him out of the game? The body that's made suppressing protests with one man, on foot, so much easier for governments across the globe? Before the Morgan became a one-man-army machine you could stuff sociopaths into, it was my shot at making wheelchairs obsolete. The Morgan Mobility Endoframe. Literally the first thing I did when I built it was promise -- was swear on my mother's grave-- that it would absolutely never be used for combat. Figured I was brighter, therefore more ethical, therefore impossible to trick into misusing vital technology. So I turned down every PMC that knocked on my door. Denied the military's unsubtle "national security" shtick. I even rigged up a deadman switch to delete the data if I didn't check in once every twenty-four hours, just in case villains came calling. All I wanted was to demo it, get some publicity so I could attract the most ethical possible venture capital. So I got in touch with a family friend, and he put me in contact with a few people who were willing to demonstrate the Morgan frame in public in exchange for custom rigs. An aspiring pop idol from a poor family, who wanted an acrobatic body to wow the judges in a singing competition. Prove she could do it to her dad before he passed away. An athlete three years in a hospital bed, paralyzed from the waist down, who wanted to run again, just once. An infirm novelist who wanted to complete his last work before his body bit the dust. They got in touch with me, I vetted them to make sure their stories were true -- which they were -- and I decided it seemed like easy publicity, and exactly what I wanted the Morgan frame to do, besides. Give people their lives back. And, well... the Morgan Frame was near-impossible to construct, but one model in the wrong hands is all it takes to reverse-engineer your cutting-edge body. And, somehow, I didn't foresee that paramilitary organizations would be able to hire people who had moving personal stories to justify their need for robot bodies. It was all I could do to secure a patent and try to crack down on illegal sales, but their kludgy source code was enough to create a thriving black market. So, now, that little singer's lithe frame carries hundreds of assassins across rooftops sniper rifles, and the legs I remember agonizing over so they'd balance perfectly help them line up their shots. That athlete's muscular form sees a lot of work for fascists, breaking strikes by breaking heads with the bull's charge I imagined would make the wind whistle through his hair. The bodies I wanted to use to give people a better future ended up making the future change not at all, except rich murderers' jobs ended up being a lot easier. Why did I -- someone who's apparently, by multiple metrics, just flat-out capable of learning a better scientific method than anyone without meta-intellect can even grasp, who has an entire extra type of number available to them, that's how goddamn good I am at math -- let this happen? Because "bright" only works when you're thinking. I let my brain go on autopilot. I sorted those charity cases into the category for "NPC," "mannequin to display my miracle tech," "glorified booth babe," "humanities type" -- and irrevocably screwed thousands and thousands of people because I didn't think anyone else would be smart. So that's why I'm here, at school. It's not enough to be bright. It's not even enough to be brighter. I wish it were, but it isn't. If I can't actually apply my intellect -- if I can't make decisions in possession of the facts, not just whatever pleasant narratives pop into my head to justify what I already wanted to do -- I might as well be an idiot. And if the Morgan Frame Mark 2 is ever going to see public release, I'd like it to be associated with something decent. With saving human lives. Not with Nico Morgan, science tragedy and world's brightest idiot. With Dynamo, the hero. quote:Hero Name: Dynamic Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Dec 15, 2018 |
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Dec 15, 2018 03:06
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Dracula Factory posted:Cernunnos, The Newborn Updated my post with my backstory and playbook! I went a lil overboard with the backstory but I hope yall like it.
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Dec 15, 2018 09:55
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 Zephyr the Protege They call Halycon the greatest city in the world and to be honest they're probably not wrong. On any given day you can meet aliens, heroes, villains or your alternate universe doppelganger from the dimension where you're left-handed. (Seriously, one of my friends swears this happened to him.) The city is home to countless technological marvels and magical artefacts. What most people don't stop to consider is that all those people need coffees, they need their offices cleaning, their toilets unblocking. Which is where people like my mom come in. She works fourteen hour days doing all the little jobs that keep Halycon running. As a result I kind of grew up self-reliant and independent and started acting up because that was the only way to get any attention from her. Did I mention I was a little poo poo as a kid? Probably should have... It only got worse when I started developing my powers not long after puberty. I'm still not sure if the two events were linked or if I got my powers from exposure to radiation, being dropped on the head one too many times as a baby or because I was born on the fifth Wednesday of the month but I'm digressing. See I'm what's called an aerokinetic which means I can manipulate the air around me. There's actually a longer and more boring scientific explanation if you're feeling particularly insomniac one day you can ask Sirocco to lecture you on it. But yeah while I can't fly I can get ridiculous hang time on my jumps. (And apparently there is a rule against using it to play basketball, lousy coach.) I've also used it to develop my own awesome fighting style that I totally didn't crib from those Asian wire-fu movies. Sure Sirocco calls it unnecessarily flashy but what does he know, the last time he had fun was probably 1997 or something. And one more power which is that if I focus really hard I can jiggle the molecules in the air around things. Things like say the handle of a car door from the inside so that an enterprising teen could then take the car in question for a joy ride. Of course it was just my luck that one of the cars I jacked just happened to belong to a certain superhero who was doing some undercover work. Although I only found it out later on when he dropped out the air in front of me. Nearly gave me a heart attack because while the logical part of my brain knew he wouldn't waste his time on a small time criminal like me the rest of me was making GBS threads myself. But he wasn't upset or at least not the kind of upset I would have expected. Instead he asked me a simple question."Why are you wasting your gifts?" and to be honest I didn't have a good answer. Then he gave me the cake or death speech. Either he could haul me off to super-powered juvie and let me stew in there for a few months or he'd take me on and teach me to use my powers right before I got myself or someone else killed. So I made the best decision of my life and let him train me. I won't bore you with all the details but with his help my control of my powers has been getting better and I've even started to get better grades in school. That's when he threw the big bombshell for me. Apparently his teaching isn't good enough for me according the powers that be all would be- superheroes have to be properly licensed and trained by accredited professionals. Although I doubt any of the teachers here can teach me half as well as the old man. I suppose it's not all bad. My mom thinks it's great that i'm getting proper training and using my powers responsibly. And some of the people in my class aren't as bad as I thought they'd be. I thought they'd look down on me but they're actually pretty nice and it's good to have friends who understand you know the little tangles of super powered life. Like seriously how all the good hero outfits are copyrighted or how to keep your hair styled when leaping around in a breeze you know essentials like that... quote:Hero Name: Zephyr Ferrosol fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Dec 15, 2018 |
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Dec 15, 2018 11:11
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JK
ilootthecorpse fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 16, 2018 03:38
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 Cassiopeia, the Star > Cassiopeia BIG NEWS! + "Origin Story" Live Q&A + SIGNATURE Look Process 💜✨💅 Heey, starlings! I am as always Cassiopeia and welcome to today's stream. I got a big announcement to make today, and I'm just so excited to tell y'all that I'm just gonna have to lead with it. Now, I'm gonna give you a few seconds to get in here, so you got until I finish taking a big sip of my cocoa before I tell the news. Don't let your friends be late. I hope you're ready? So my big news, the announcement I wanna make, is that your girl got accepted into Phoenix Academy! I know, naturally, right? But I'm still really, really excited. I wanna take a moment to thank all of you who've been supporting me, whether you've followed me since I was just a makeup channel, or whether you came in 'cuz you saw me on the news putting villains' lights out. When I started, I had no idea this was where my life would lead me, but all your love and support lets me do the things I wanna do. Thank you so much. You mean the world to me, I truly do love y'all. And to the haters and the naysaysers, all I got to say is keep watching. You stuck with me this far too, and if you keep looking up, you'll keep seeing me shine. Now, I may've been doing what I do for a minute, but getting into Phoenix A still feels like an official beginning, you know? So today I'm gonna be doing an origin story kinda Q&A. I'm gonna be answering some of your questions about how I got here. And throughout, I'm gonna show you how what you see on TV comes together - a little peek behind the curtain on what you're gonna be seeing a lot more of soon. I'm gonna show you how I do my signature look, the Cassiopeia cosmic trademark. Star playbook posted:When did you first appear onscreen? Star playbook posted:
Star playbook posted:Who Star playbook posted:Who Star playbook posted:
quote:Hero Name: Cassiopeia Art by GDBee; Yuan Cui; GDBee; Andrea Casartelli Wol fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Dec 19, 2018 |
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Dec 16, 2018 05:20
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  Around the back of the school, "Dark Witch" Hecate is leaning against the wall, smoke streaming past the half consumed cigarette held loosely by her lips, drooping towards the ground at a rough angle. Beside her, the trusty baseball bat sits leaning against the wall a bit lower, the cloth dirty and stained. Putting her cellphone away, she looks up with a cold expression on her face, letting out a dismissive sound somewhere between and 'Hmph' and a 'Tch'. Reaching up to hold her cigarette, she spits, free hand now resting casually on the knob of her bat, ready to move into action. But after sizing up the visitor, she relaxes a bit, stepping away from the wall to squad on the ground instead, looking back where she'd been staring, out into the distance, legs spread wide and bat bouncing lightly over her knee. "What do you want, Strawberry Squirt?" Continuing before she can get an answer, she smirks, "Can't get a moments peace around here. I suppose they sent you after me? I heard the start of your speech before I could get out of there, 'U-Ummm...'" She doesn't quite manage to match the pitch and tone, but probably because she overshot it in exaggeration. "'I've been asked to say a few words, ummm!' You obviously don't want to be doing this any more than I want to, why'd they put you up to it? Do they think you'll be able to get me in line? Well sorry, but you aren't my type." Hecate pauses for a moment, looking her up and down - mostly down - and smiles slightly. "Though you are cute. Tch. Lets just get this over with." "So One. No, I'm not going back in for the rest of the assembly. poo poo's boring, and everyone just saws the same stupid poo poo. At least you meant yours and it wasn't just a canned speech. Two, no, I won't change my mind. I'm only here because Indigo, that pointy eared bitch," Despite her words, Hecate's tone actually lightens a bit at the mention of this teacher, seemingly almost cheerful even if she doesn't realize it, "thinks I'd do better at school with 'my peers' than in juvie for a bit of light burglary trespass and vandalism. Not like she even missed that spellbook I stole, it took her long enough to come and get it back. You'd think two years without caring would be enough for the statute of limitations to be up." ---------------------  The Hero and Teacher at Phoenix Academy, Indigo is said to be at least a hundred years old, having spent that time off and on between active heroes, locking herself away for decades to study the deeper mysteries of magic, and teaching new generations of magicians and troublemakers. Her powers include the arcane arts, scrying and truthseeing with her (rumored) third eye, being somewhat unhinged and utterly terrifying when in a bad mood, which is almost always, and the ability to go up to five days without any sleep if she's drinking caffeine and has a book in front of her. Stealing one of her hand written tomes would generally be considered to be a very bad, very stupid idea. In an odd moment of charity whose reasoning completely eludes Hecate, when the young 'witch' was before the court for a series of minor offenses, Indigo appeared correctly implicating her in the theft of a tome and then had her sentence and that of the rest of Hecate's gang commuted in exchange for her attendance at Phoenix Academy. The dark elf certainly has a reason, but only those she's told know what it is, if anyone. --------------------- "Does she think I'm some kind of charity case?" Hecate mutters more to herself, clearly trying to sound upset with the idea - and fooling approximately one person, herself. "Well, it got the rest of my gang out of trouble, so..." Looking up, as if just remembering her interview subject, she spits again before taking another drag on her cigarette. "Anyway, I'll do the hero work, and I'll go to class as much as I need to get a passing grade, but not any more than that, all my end of the deal says is I need to pass, that means C's across the board. You can go back and tell them that, that's what they'll get from me, no more, no less." Despite her dismissive attitude, it does seem that her visitor was able to get a fair bit of information out of her. "Now beat it." Standing up again, Hecate holds her empty hand out, and with twirl of her bat and a small pop, a canister of spray-paint appears in it. Giving it a shake with a clearly practiced hand, she sprays the name of her old gang, The Bad Witches in thick lettering on the wall, taps the ground at her feet with her bat twice and vanishes in a clap of displaced air. Just in sight, she appears down the length of the building, swinging her bat up to rest over her shoulder, whistling to herself as she chucks the remains of her cigarette to the ground, treading on it with her heavy boot. Maybe she will go back to the assembly. All the new students are in there, she's bound to find some people looking as bored as she was. Everyone who goes to this school can't be a goody toe-shoes, there's bound to be some people who want to have fun. And at the very least, even if she is stuck here, the school does have a lot of nice roads to speed down. This won't be all bad. The Delinquent posted:Hero Name: 'Dark Witch' Hecate GodFish fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2018 08:24
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 My hoodie is also a dragon. Before you ask- you can't borrow it. pre:
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Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 17, 2018 04:51
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These things fill up too drat fast. I'm gonna try to put something together tomorrow, I've been busy.
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Dec 17, 2018 04:58
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   Theme music!  "Well, here it is. Do you want to go to Phoenix or not?" Pop-Quiz, my dad's old teammate, was holding the acceptance letter out in front of me. I hadn't applied. I wasn't allowed to apply. Mom would kill me if she found out about this. Tears welled up in my eyes but I did my best not to let them fall. "I... I can't. Mom won't let me go." "I didn't ask if you could, I asked if you wanted to," she said, holding up a finger. "Yes," I said, nodding fiercely. "More than anything." She handed me the letter. But the name on the envelope wasn't mine. "This is for Marco Reyes," I said, confused. "That's you," she said, grinning. "Or rather, it will be. Do you think your mother is so stupid that she wouldn't notice a girl your age with your daddy's abilities showing up at Phoenix?" I grit my teeth. She was absolutely right. And no matter what happened, Mom couldn't know about this. But I still had about a thousand questions. "What about my regular school? Won't they notice I'm missing?" "No, it's all been arranged. Your grades at Phoenix will show up just like they should under your name at Halcyon High. Any class that isn't offered at both schools will just be a general elective. Tuition is already paid for as well, through a merit scholarship, so you'd better make sure you do your homework." It didn't surprise me that Pop-Quiz had worked it all out. She was a support-style hero, and she worked with all kinds of politicians and city leaders when she wasn't teaching at Phoenix. "But... why now?" I asked. "You just show up at my house one day when no one else is home... You haven't even come to see us since Dad's funeral." "I would have, Elena," she looked down at her black and white harlequin boots. "But your mother didn't want anyone from Jaunt's life around you or your brother. I've respected her wishes until now, but she doesn't have the right to take that choice away from you. If this is what you want... I'll make it happen." I nodded again, clutching the letter to my chest. The next couple weeks were filled with secret meetings where I learned how to fake being Marco. Pills to lower my voice, a mask to cover the bottom half of my face, a white-haired wig, a whole new wardrobe of boy's clothes and how to wear them... It was a lot to do but I like acting, so it came easy enough. When did you first put on the mask? Why? Well, if you’re talking literally, I first put on the mask on the day I got accepted to Phoenix Academy. I’d been hiding the fact that I had powers from my family for months, just pretending to be perfectly normal. See, my Mom… *sigh*. It’s complicated. But if you’re talking... you know, why did I decide to become a hero? That’s different. That’s because I need to learn how to control my powers and keep training them until I’m strong enough to do something only I can do. Something really important. Why do you keep a secret identity? Because I have to. See, Mom doesn’t have any powers, but she always loved heroes. Literally, in the case of my Dad. His codename was Jaunt. Yeah, that Jaunt. You probably saw his funeral on TV. Half the city came. It sorta… well, Mom was never the same after that. I guess she’s afraid if me and my brother try to be heroes we’ll end up like Dad. It’s really frustrating because I love my Mom, and she’s pretty awesome if you never say the “H” word around her. But she would probably disown me if she found out I got accepted to Phoenix Academy. That’s why I’m pretending to be a boy, you know? She’d totally figure it out otherwise. Who, outside of the team, knows about your dual identity? A few people on the school staff know, so do my Dad’s old teammates. The whole thing was Aunt Belle’s… I mean, Pop-Quiz’s idea. She was my Dad’s best friend growing up, and she was part of the family until Dad died. Finding out that Mom told her not to come see us anymore really hurt... Who thinks the worst of your masked identity? Oh, geez. This one stings. My little brother, Gabriel. He thinks Polaris is a total poser who is just ripping off our Dad. I’m pretty sure he makes a habit of downvoting all the videos I end up in and he definitely posts about how much I suck online. I wish I could tell him the truth but the second I do he’s gonna rat me out to Mom and that’ll be the end of everything… Or he’ll be smart enough to realize he can blackmail me FOREVER. Neither of those are good options. Why do you care about the team? Because a team is more than just a team, they’re family. Dad’s team were my aunts and uncles, I grew up with them and I love them all. Having a team of my own… It’s really important to me. I need people I can trust, people that, if I’m lucky, I won’t have to lie to about who I am and what I want to do. People who might be willing to help me find Dad. Yeah, I know, everyone believes he’s dead. You’ve got that same look in your eyes right now, that look that says ‘She hasn’t accepted it yet, poor thing.’ Well eff that! No one found a body, and don’t give me that crap about the explosion being too hot, I’ve heard it all before. Dad can teleport! He got out of there, I know he did! He just... he must have gotten lost, somewhere. That’s why he never came home. My name is Polaris because if you ever get lost and need to find your way home, the North Star will guide you. He told me that, when I was real little. So I’m gonna be his North Star, and I’m gonna bring him home, someday. Just you wait and see. --FULL SHEET HERE-- quote:Hero Name: Polaris mistaya fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 17, 2018 12:26
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 Theme song Hero Name: Tsutsumi Real Name: Blake Bantry -Backstory- How did you gain your skills? posted:My talents, huh... honestly, they're really nothing special, just tricks and moves I picked up here and there or by coincidence. I mean, I picked up archery because living in the outer suburbs, there really wasn't much else to do other than stay at home watching reruns of Gunvarrel Ankh Striker or whatever else was on. Plus, it was only a few minutes from school and I got to hang out with a few of my mates too. I ended up trying out for the school's football team too, since I thought maybe I could be someone if I got into sports, yknow? I pretty much got in by default, since my school was pretty remote and there weren't really many others interested, and it was pretty fun, too - man, that crowd was loud when I scored that penalty shot in the locals - but I really got into it about a year ago, when we moved to Halcyon and I found out my sister was a hero at the same time. When did you first put on your costume? posted:It was just three months ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Y'see, there was this kind of midnight warehouse party that a few of my friends had planned and wanted me to go along with. The thing is, it was after curfew and all so I thought it might be a bit dangerous, y'know? But since they wanted to go anyway and wouldn't be convinced otherwise, I felt like I had to do something, y'know? Like I had to protect them? Be a hero? If that makes sense? So even though I said I wouldn't go, I snuck in in costume and just sort of hung out on the rafters, hoping nothing happens, which thankfully nothing did. Who, outside of the team, thinks you shouldn’t be a superhero? posted:Well, there's Dad, for once. I don't think he ever really approved of my hobbies or my dreams. The first time I brought it up to him that hey, one day i'd like to become a hero - for my birthday wish when I turned 10, even! - he just shook his head, sighed wistfully and told me I'll "grow out of it one day," whatever that means. Sometimes, I wonder... if, maybe he's right, y'know? I mean, he is my father and all, and I know he just wants to keep me safe. Whenever I bring it up he just deflects the issue, telling me that he'd be proud of me anyway even if I do just live a normal life and follow in his footsteps as a translator or something, but... but I won't stop dreaming. I can't stop dreaming. Not for Dad, or Sis, or anyone else! Why do you try to be a hero? posted:Growing up on Doctor Who and Mom's old anime collection - I mean, it was either that or reruns of football for the eleventh time, heh - but yeah, I've always gone to bed thinking, dreaming about how cool it would be, you know? If I were to be like one of those heroes, fighting monsters or saving the world, finding your destined partner, y'know, that sorta thing. Why do you care about the team? posted:Why wouldn't I care about my teammates? Without them I'd be like the Doctor without his companions or Genki without Rosetta or so on! From what I've learned watching my shows, teamwork is the key to success, y'know? We make each other stronger, we drive each other to be the best we can possibly be, we face down monsters and villains that we can't beat on our own, and we do it together as the best darn team at Phoenix, no, in the world! Why does the Beacon get to be here and they don’t? posted:Honestly, that's a really good question... maybe it was just luck of the draw, heh? Really, I dunno. Maybe it was fate, or maybe it was destiny? I mean, I've always wanted to go to Phoenix, the designated hero school of the designated hero capital of the world, so just getting an offer was like a dream come true, y'know? code:Aesculus fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 20, 2018 05:25
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quote:
Okay! Testing round!There's only one question- How did you pass the application test? A few things - You are placed with 2 other potential NPC applicants. Do you work together? Do you go solo? Do you outshine them? - Your opposition are robots with paint guns. So you can go all out if you need to without worrying about casualties. However, is that always the best option? Could the Robots be a stand in for something? - You objective is one of the following: A Bomb to be disarmed / A hostage to be rescued / or A Mini Boss to take down. Your choice. - Is there a complication to the test? A sudden appearance of an unexpected enemy unit? An issue with the arena? Someone else's test interfering with yours? Or perhaps something that defies explanation? What happen's is up to you. If all apps and answers are done before the deadline then we'll do picks early! Good luck.
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Dec 22, 2018 17:42
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Arashiofordo3 posted:
Well, duh, of course I passed. You think that they really considered the full potential of rift-skipping? Man, you should have seen the look on that lady's face when my team — lovely people, I'll get to them in a bit — finished our scheduled test in... let's see, what was the official time? Ah, there it is. 5.3 seconds. No sweat at all. I've done this sort of thing before. So, let's do the initial rundown and then I'll get back to what happened after all that. We had a little time to do a meet-and-greet before the gates opened and they set us loose. They partnered me with this alien chick, called herself Pandora, and an emo kid in a hoodie that went by Hemlock. Pandy does a bunch of mental stuff, pretty typical for a post-scarcity starfaring race in my experience. Makes you think, right? People eliminate want, then next thing you know, mind powers all over this business. Hemlock was an interesting one, too. On-site production and synthesis of organic compounds... or, not in nerd talk, he makes poisons and other things like that outta nowhere. Tricky business, that, especially when you're supposed to be showing your stuff against a bunch of decidedly robotic opponents. Kind of an eclectic mix, I guess, but I'm used to partnering up with someone new and fighting weird poo poo. Happens all the time out there. Pandy got us all linked up and coordinated, plus took care of scouting out for organics... which, to be totally honest, was like half the reason we were so fast. I was the other half, of course. She locked on to the target, I rift-stepped through whatever teleporter-resistant mechanisms they thought they had in place, and that was that. We secured the hostage quicker than the giant slidey-door that seperated us from the arena could go up... which definitely threw a wrench in their plans, since I assume part of this whole hero testing thing is to see how we work together and assess strengths and areas of growth and... y'know, bullshit. I'm guessing that's why the test lady tried to throw us for a loop by sending in a couple of those bigger robots and activating a bunch of those bombs simultaneously. A real "gently caress you!" straight from admin, like they wanted to see how we'd react to inevitable failure. 'Course, guess they didn't know who they were dealing with, because this ain't my first time going robot hunting either. With multiple threats and objectives, we needed to split up and do our things to even have a chance to finish it all on time. I took the bombs, while Pandy coordinated and supported Hemlock with the giant robots. Speaking of, Hemlock did some cool stuff with making smokescreens and the like with some chemical wizardry, but did more work with a laser rifle he'd apparently hidden in the arena beforehand. Dude's a step ahead, somehow, even though he looks like he's half-asleep. Real precision shooting, too, which let Pandy rip off a couple of giant robot arms and use those as telekinetic clubs. Place was a real scrapyard when they were finished. And me? Oh, baby, I put on a show. So, in the grand tradition of what's-her-face getting back at us for short-circuiting her test, all the bombs had ridiculous security on them. Like, basically farscape-level tech. Short of being the person keyed to the bomb, not much hope of disarming them... but who said that's what I was after? When you've got a rift generator, a lot of things start looking like problems you can just toss in a dimensional trash-can. I couldn't do much conventionally, so I did things my way instead. Tossed 'em straight into a pocket dimension with an extremely dialated flow of time. Problem solved. They hadn't even ticked down much by the time someone came around to ask for their fancy test bombs back. Anyways, those two were fun enough to goof around with, but I don't think they're exactly what I'm looking for in a partner when I head back to the farscapes. Hope they make it in, though, we'll grab drinks or something sometime. I have a bunch of fun things Hemlock can synth up, given knowledge of the right chemical structures, and even heroes party. Heroes around here do party, right?
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Dec 22, 2018 20:15
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"...And now, for your daily Phoenix List update! While rumors have been flying ever since the enrollment phase opened three weeks ago, no names have officially surfaced to indicate who the heroes of tomorrow will be...until today. Reina, what do you have for us?" "Hello, Tom, this is Reina Aldrich, live from London, where multimedia titan Empyrean Enterprises has just concluded a surprise public conference, announcing that their decision to sponsor a new hero's bid to enter Phoenix Academy. To everyone's surprise, their chosen champion will not be an established vigilante, but instead a new face who made his appearance just today. Rookie hero Joaquín Barone, alias Heirloom, put on a spectacular display at a tryout in his home city of Buenos Aires, organized by Empyrean itself for a mentorship program. We've managed to acquire footage of his performance, and will be showing it off in a minute. But first, we'd like to play the statements made by the young media mogul Alexa Empyrean, explaining her shocking decision to sign an untested hero, almost sight-unseen..." The sound of the TV broadcast coming through an open window faded away as Joaquín fiddled with the lock of the Recoleta Cemetery's main gate and slipped inside, serious as a heart attack and quite as a shade. Nobody even tried to stop him as he walked down the rain-slick tile roads, searching for one gravestone among thousands. The gravekeepers had long gone to sleep. It was easy to lose all sense of time or direction in the tiny, claustrophobic city of the dead, but he quickly found his target. The bouquet of asphodels he'd left upon the gravestone near sunrise had been the giveaway - it was still there, and somehow the hours spent out of water hadn't managed to dim its petals' color at all. "Hey, Lucas." Sitting down on the ground in front of it, he reached for his backpack and pulled out an old, homemade baseball bat, worn down by use, but carefully maintained and well-cared for. When he held it in his hands and focused, he felt a warmth course through his arms to his heart. A shining tether of silver light linked him and the bat together, and several locks of his hair darkened in hue from bright red to black. For a moment, he simply stared at the gravestone of his best friend - but then, as a pair of phantom wrist wraps appeared on his skin, just like he used to wear, he broke into a wide grin. "I made it, man. I made it!" Joaquín Barone, The Star, AKA...   /  quote:When did you frst appear onscreen? Heh, that's an easy one. Didn't you see it? It was all over the news when it happened, kinda. I really wanted to be a hero, so I decided to apply for an apprenticeship program that was holding open air tryouts. When I got there, they said I should show off what I was capable of. The rest is history! Every single test they'd set up so everyone could demonstrate their powers, bam, cleared just like that. quote:• What do you tell people about how you got your powers? The truth! I was born with them. I just need to touch something or someone and I can...OK, I know this is gonna sound weird, but I can draw out their soul. Not like, steal it or anything! It's more like I can see what they're really like and take it into myself, become more like them. Whatever they're all about, firing lasers, doing math, I can do it too. It's really cool! It's not just cherrypicking things I wanna take from them, it's like getting to know them like a best friend would, maybe even better than that. And it's super flashy! Did you know things have souls too? We're too deaf to hear them, but they're always calling out to us, begging to be used right. And when I form a link with them, I always know what right is. Really puts everything into perspective! It's pretty fun, but... ...But... ...But I really don't have any powers, do I? I just take them from everyone else. I'm not really the one making things happen, they are. I just get to know them well enough I can point their talents the right way. It's why I can't even get too far away from them without severing the link and losing everything. I don't know if someone like me's really supposed to be a super hero...but it's OK. I'm gonna try anyway. And I'm gonna make it, 'cause someone has to shine a light on a world that's getting darker by the day. quote:Who, outside of the team, supports your burgeoning star in every way possible? There's Empyrean...I mean, Alexa Empyrean, the head of EE's media branch. You know her, right? Successor to Empyrean I and II, big promise, practically superheroic royalty? She's going to Phoenix too, and she's the one who got me a shot at the application exams and all that stuff, but she's super controlling and pushy. She signed me up with EE personally, and when we talked, she said something pretty weird that's stuck with me since. "You're nothing but an unremarkable everyman, but you can also be every single man in turn. You'll work as a stand-in for the masses so I can measure myself against them. Don't let me down". I'm still not sure what she's really about, but EE's been really spinning up the media machine to hype me up since then. It's weird, people treat me like I'm different when we're talking on HeroWatch about what superheroes have been doing. Like even the dumbest things I say really matter. Is it always like this for everyone? I don't know. But yeah, I don't think she counts. If not her, though, then who? ...Oh. Right. Jessie Hailey, AKA Heartfelt. Emotion controller. Fashionista. Vigilante. Total fangirl. You got any idea how weird it is to have a classmate start up a fanclub for you? Especially when she's got no brakes on her powers and can get people super hyped about anything just by talking about it? I think she's got a crush on me. She says we should partner up and I should change my name to Soulmate and...ew. Ew. Ewwwww. No thanks! quote:Who, outside of the team, loathes what you represent? Asgard, for sure. Remember how I asked for volunteers at the tryout? He was the first guy to come forward, and he's still convinced I stole a spot on Phoenix's list that was meant for him. I know, I know - doesn't make any sense, that's not even what it was for, but I don't think he cares. He says an old god chose him to protect the world and he's mad I took his job away from him. I really hope he doesn't find his way here, somehow - he looks like the type to carry a grudge, and I don't wanna spend the whole year dodging lightning bolts. quote:Why do you care about the team? You know why I decided to be a superhero? Because my best friend died because one of them made a mistake. His name was Lucas. We got caught in the crossfire when a super fight broke out. I made it out, but he didn't, and after...everything broke. It was like everyone around me lost hope. I wanted to fix it, to bring the smiles back to their faces, so I decided...I decided I'd be the hero they needed, a hero they really could believe in. A hero who remembered that it's not about beating up the bad guys, but protecting the innocents and keeping them safe. But I can't do this alone. I'm just faking it. I need real heroes to fight at my side...and when I came to Halcyon, I found them. And I'm not letting them go until we fix the world, together. quote:The Star: You’re a celebrity even among your own class… but also, Phoenix Academy is one of the only places you can really be free of all those cameras and attention. Is that good or bad? I don't know. It feels kinda nice to be able to breathe once in a while, but it feels like every second I'm not out there raising my profile is another second someone out there is getting hurt. I just wanna do something. Really make a difference. But what am I supposed to do? quote:Real Name: Joaquín Gabriel Barone Transient People fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 22, 2018 21:48
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Arashiofordo3 posted:
Uh.. None of you have heard Tenkman's version of the story yet, have you? Tenkman? The huge South African guy? The guy who gives everyone the mean nicknames? He calls me 'Pisscade and 'Asscade' and he called Technopath.. Well, I don't want to repeat it because I think it was a slur. I can't believe you haven't seen him around. He's a bullying rear end in a top hat, and he'll probably challenge you to punch him square in the face. He does it to practically everyone on campus to show he tough he is. Our test was pretty dire. I really wanted to impress the judges but I didn't want to go overboard. I know it was just robots, but it won't always be robots, right? I wanted to show that I could control myself and be a team player. My stomach was in knots and I'd decided to tone myself down as much as I could, and just go along with what the rest of the team wanted. I figured the judges would prefer teamwork and "shows promise" to.. what I usually do. When Technopath said she had a plan, I was immediately on board. If we grabbed her a robot, she could hijack it and send it in to scout out where the bomb was located, it was such a smart first move. Her powers are insane, her entire right arm is one big nanomachine cluster. Also, she spells her hero name with a 0 instead of an O, like an old-timey hacker. She's super cute. I MEAN COOL, she's cool. Her powers, I mean - her powers are cute-COOL. poo poo. What part was I at? Right, we grabbed a robot for her. She hacked it and sent it off, telling us exactly what it was seeing. While she was doing recon, because all the bad guys here were robots, I said "Wow, with your powers, you don't even need us." It was just supposed to be a complimentary joke, but Tenkman got really aggro about it. He wasn't very pleasant to begin with but he got all amped up, yelled at us a bunch, then told us to follow him or keep out of the way. From his perspective this was probably called "taking charge". Tenkman is really, really competitive. He's super strong, super tough, and if he somehow does get harmed, he heals quickly. I feel like his powers made him used to winning. He smashed his way through the outside guards and kicked down the shutter door. We went after him, since the plan was ruined and we couldn't just wait. Technopath slapped a bunch of the less broken looking robots on the way in, and they followed after us. The bomb was on the top floor. Tenkman had already started punching his way up the stairs and we wanted to get to it as quickly as possible. We'd lost the element of surprise and we were worried about them detonating the bomb early. I suggested we take the service elevator - the broken one. Lifting it wasn't exactly the most visually superheroic thing, but it was honestly my powers at their best. I got her, ten and a half robots, and myself to the top floor in about half a minute. It was fast, steady and we barely even damaged the roof. In addition to our plan going totally out the window and a third of our team going rogue, we stepped out of the elevator into an immediate robot war. It was chaos. I couldn't keep track of what robots were Techno's and which were the bad guys, so she ordered me to just watch her back while she disarmed the fake bomb. I stood behind her and I repelled any machine that tried to come close, while the rest of them took each other apart. Tenkman came barrelling up the stairs just after Technopath finished up and he put down the last few robots. He freaked out and accused her of stealing the win, and the two of them got into a huge yelling match. I asked them both to calm down. He responded by headbutting me, and I think he called me a cuck. I tried to guard, but I wasn't expecting it and you know my control sucks at the best of times. I take the full hit, fall on my butt and slide back a ways. Then I kinda freak out and I.. *shear* this chunk off the building. Like cutting the corner off of a block of cheese. It groaned and creaked, and slid right off, taking Tenkman with it. This is where the school staff came in. I dropped a ton of concrete on another student. I know this isn't a normal school, and I know his bones unbroke themselves overnight, but I thought for sure I was going to be arrested or something. I still feel guilty about how light the reprecussions were. The school said my enrolment would be contingent on taking some extra-cirricular training to work on my restraint. They made the superheroic ethics class mandatory for me too. As for Tenkman, I'm glad I didn't permanantly hurt him, but he's so much more of an rear end in a top hat now. Way more aggressive than he used to be, and it's probably my fault. I think that might have been the first time he'd ever been hurt. Now he acts like he has everything to prove. I try and avoid him now because he definitely hates me more than anyone else at this school. I think Techno's side of the story might have been part of the reason I wasn't kicked out after that mess. She's in a different class and I haven't even seen her around campus, which sucks because I kinda wanted to thank her in person. We text back and forth a little, even though I don't remember giving her my phone number. I guess she didn't need it. So, do I win the worst test award?
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Dec 23, 2018 01:23
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