Street-level Superhero

Festivus 2009

2009-12-17T01:45:35Z

Thor, Ricochet, & the Spirit embrace the holiday. If you think you'd receive some kind of festive token of their esteem, by all means lemme hear it.

Someone who knows about Christmas and wants anything should easily be able to guilt Mullin into giving, too.

True Stories of the "Core Marvel Universe"

2009-11-26T06:05:40Z

In the Core Marvel Universe, Thor -- the literal Norse god of Thunder -- was turned into a frog for three issues, including one where his magic hammer turned him into a 6'6" frog-man (er, frog-god), which had the side effect of chipping his hammer so that another frog (who had once been a man before he was cursed by a fortune-teller) could turn into a normal-sized frog-god, which came in handy when he had to team up with a teleporting dog and a sabretooth tiger to get magic gems back from an alien from Jupiter's moon who was in love with the living embodiment of Death.

I love comic books. Although technically, Thanos is from Titan, which is one of Saturn's moons. But the rest of that is right.

Superhero Facebook: It's a wonderful thing

2009-10-07T16:13:53Z

Spider-Man has a note on his calendar that says it's his anniversary. WTF? Anniversary of WHAT?

Oh, Chris Sims of the Invincible Super-Blog, why are you so awesome?

Things I am way too excited about--some of them from Marvel!

2009-09-08T04:30:12Z

Iron Man anime

Wow. That's kinda fairly awesome. I especially like that Iron Man seems to be fighting someone I can only identify as Baron Wolfgang von Harlock.

TRON: Legacy

Now this is so much cooler than pod-racing. It's not just a game anymore. I'm sorry, I still kinda liked the title when it was TR2N, even when that made no sense. This also fulfills any lingering obligations I have to the Mouse.

5 Second Films
"The sun is too hot."

"God bless you, Santa."

Mere words are not enough.

The Wolfman
No, really... I totally buy Benicio del Toro as being Anthony Hopkins' son. Don't you?
HOLY SHIT, WEREWOLF! And only Agent Smith/Elrond/whoever he was in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert can stop it!

Essay Time

2009-08-04T16:28:16Z

So—a while back, I wrote up one of my standard tl;dr essays about Ricochet’s place in the Marvelverse, particularly his thoughts about the mutant-human conflict and IC & OOC rationales for why he’s not part of the X-Men. Since then we’ve gotten a couple new mutants here in camp—plus Wolverine—and their presence changes the equation enough that I felt like essaying again. This essay’s aimed to look at clarifying some things about Rico’s status as a mutant, and how he relates to the X-Men as a result. (Wolverine’s presence is likely to spark its own essay before too long; look for that to follow if you’ve absolutely nothing better to do with your time.)

Race Relations: Redux
Last time I wrote about this, I characterized the X-Men’s current outlook with regards to their current membership drive as being more concerned with race than character—putting the mutant before the person, as it were—and contrasted this with Rico, who I’ve always seen and tried to play as being more concerned with who someone is than what they are. This oversimplifies things, and that’s not entirely fair given the X-Men’s current status in the Marvelverse, so let me clarify.

Simply put, the X-Men are in it for the species. Since the vast majority of mutants were depowered after the M-Day event, mutantkind has become even more of a collective target—and the X-Men, as the public face of mutants, are smack in the middle of the bull’s-eye. Their concern as an organization is the survival of mutants as a species, against very real threats of extinction. Given that context, they’ve been portrayed as not necessarily having the luxury of choosing their allies with exacting care—anyone with a stake in mutant survival, even if that person is nominally a villain, can be of value to the cause. The X-Men might not be thrilled with it, but when the lynch mobs are forming up outside your door, the time for idealism is probably well past.

Ricochet, on the other hand, has that luxury. His mutation is such that he can easily pass for human, and his low profile in the public eye means that even most of the superhuman community has no real reason to identify him as a mutant. And while I don’t think he’d deny being a mutant if it came up, he doesn’t necessarily advertise the fact, either. He’s under the radar of most people out looking to eliminate mutants—and given the choice, he’s happy to stay there. Since the pressure isn’t on him to live life as an “outed” mutant, the survival of the species isn’t really his chief concern.

Shrugged at the Call
So… The X-Men turned Ricochet down when he tried to join, to the point that they wouldn’t even return his calls.

Really, that was a throwaway gag during Rico’s reintroduction to the Marvelverse in Runaways, to highlight his status as a superhero loser—not even a has-been, but a never-was. (Just call him Uncle Rico.) That wasn’t an issue of ability—Rico was always a very capable street-level superhero, if not exactly Avengers-material—but rather dedication. He became a superhero because it seemed like it would be fun and he might make a name for himself, and when it stopped being fun and he didn’t get the time in the spotlight he wanted, he quit.

When he rejoined a supergroup, it was Excelsior—a “team” dedicated to helping people get out of the costumed life. Rico, despite being out, felt he needed help coping with the secondary effects of his time as a hero—his best friend and ex-partner’s death, in particular. But compared to the rest of his new team he really was a nobody, which really crippled his self-confidence. When Excelsior did go back into action, though, it reignited his ambition to become a superhero for the right reasons—which is how I’ve played him in Camp.

Camp has been good for Ricochet. Three years mixing it up with zombies and bossfights and the occasional movie monster have given him a chance to refine his skills and become rededicated to the job, putting a lot of his doubts and confidence issues to rest. But with folks from the X-Teams now appearing in Camp, Rico’s going to have to deal with representatives of a group of fellow mutants that 1) he doesn’t much like, and 2) are probably better at the job than he is.

It’s nothing personal against them (with the exception of Wolverine, which is personal for other reasons). He would legitimately adopt Laura if he could, only fakes grudging acceptance of Elixir, and I personally really look forward to bouncing him off of Rockslide eventually. But the appearance of X-People who at least all know each other and in some cases have worked together as a team, is bound to intimidate him a little. They’re not his team, and he’s got zero desire to join up, but it’s gonna be tough seeing other mutant superheroes in Camp because of his disdain for their organization.

... again, why not?

2009-05-27T01:05:58Z

The Character Expression Meme
Character: Ricochet
Journal: 2nd_slinger
RPG: campfuckudie

.happy.	.sad.	.angry.	.scared.

.disgusted.	.surprised.	.flirty.	.sexual.

.confused.	.shy.	.playful.	.rage.

.hurt.	.guilty.	.bored.	.laughing.

.sarcastic.	.tired.	.wtf.	.pride.

.sympathy.	.evil.	.innocent.	.in love.

YOUR	FOUR	FAVORITE	ICONS

WANT TO DO IT TOO?
Snag yourself the coding here.

It's a great day for all Mutantkind

2009-05-20T04:04:40Z

... I should post this ICly, but. I'm probably gonna pass out instead. Maybe tomorrow.

Canon Familiarity Poll 2: The Bandwagoning

2009-04-11T22:38:12Z

Which of my characters' canons are you familiar with? (i.e. have watched/played enough to know what they're about.)

Failure is not an option. "None of the Above" should have been, but I forgot it.

View Poll: Canon Familiarity Poll--Exactly What It Says On The Tin

I keep getting things vaguely resembling new canon!

2009-03-21T04:09:47Z

Former Loners series writer CB Cebulski talking about their cameo in Darkhawk's new book:

"Yeah, y'know, when Brian Vaughn introduced the Loners--which was Excelsior back in the day in Runaways--it was the super-hero self help group and they were trying to stay out of costume. With great power comes great responsibility, but if you don't use those powers, what responsibility do you still have to the public? And that's kind of the question that we always struggled with, that the Loners [were] struggling with. And what we find now is they're back on the East Coast and they have kind of a different mandate after Secret Invasion, because they have a responsibility now, given everything that's happening in the Marvel Universe in Dark Reign with Norman Osborn taking over. They have the powers--they have to do something about it. So we're addressing that briefly in Darkhawk--in the War of Kings: Darkhawk specials, and what his role is, bouncing between Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. and the Loners, and where it's going to take his relationship once he gets drafted, so to speak, for the War of Kings."

So... Rico's back in New York City (this I knew) and his team may be getting a new mission statement to tie into the larger 'verse again (this I did not know). Time to keep reading.

Essay Time

2009-03-12T04:54:28Z

Ricochet: an Omnibus Headcanon Exploration

This is an essay concept that has been percolating in the fevered pathways of my brain for some time now, and I figured I should finally let it out. It’s meant to explain how I think Ricochet feels about human-mutant relations in the Marvelverse and how that influences his views on similar scenarios he’s learned about in Camp. It’s also meant to reconcile his place in the Marvelverse ICly, mostly by stringing together best-guess rationales to make sense of what are actually entirely OOC editorial decisions. As with everything I write, I hope this will make something resembling sense.

Background
In the Marvel Universe, mutants like Ricochet are suspected as being the next step in human evolution—a genetic offshoot of baseline humanity classified as Homo sapiens superior, endowed by their respective X-genes with strange powers and abilities. Since they first appeared, mutants have been always feared and often hated by the general public, as an analogy to the real life oppressed minority du jour, despite the leap in IC logic this requires—for some reason, average folks in the Marvelverse are okay with someone who’s gotten their powers from cosmic rays or radioactive spiders, but not with someone who’s just born that way.

Regardless, mutants experienced wide-spread prejudice and frequent discrimination from a wide array of sources—an ignorant populace, fear-mongering politicians, religious fundamentalists, etc.—especially as their numbers grew and it indeed started to look like they would replace baseline humans as the dominant strain of mankind. But then events (and editorial fiat) conspired to bring the mutant species to the brink of extinction—M-Day, where the vast majority of the mutant population lost their powers through unknown forces. In one day, mutants in the Marvelverse went from being a superpowered population numbering in the millions to a group that barely amounted to 200 individuals retaining their powers.

In the wake of M-Day, anti-mutant elements amped up their persecution, killing a large number of both the depowered mutant population and some of those who’d still kept their powers. The US government had just instituted a policy of superhuman registration, and turned the Xavier Institute in New York—the base of operations for the X-Men—into a mutant “reservation,” dumping a large number of the remaining mutants there and preventing them from leaving. The X-Men responded by temporarily disbanding and moving to the West Coast, setting up a new base of operations in San Francisco and issuing an open invitation and amnesty to all surviving mutants—heroes, villains, or civilians—to join them there to make a new enclave.

Ricochet was one of the mutants to come through M-Day with his powers intact, but for some reason or reasons, he neither made his way to the Xavier Institute, nor heeded the X-Men’s later invitation to join them in San Francisco… despite the fact that he was in Los Angeles at the time.

Why?

OOC
The easily explained reason Ricochet didn’t join the X-Men has to do with editorial decisions. Ricochet had been a forgotten character after his first series was canceled in the late ‘90s, and he only reappeared on the Marvelverse radar when Brian K. Vaughn introduced a Poorly Disguised Pilot team of washed-up teenage heroes in the pages of his widely successful book, Runaways. That team included a number of Marvel has-been heroes, and it was hoped that they would be popular enough to spin off into their own series. This eventually happened, but it would take some time—and so the characters that comprised this team were put into a sort of editorial lockdown where they wouldn’t be messed with by other writers until their new series could debut.

This is why Ricochet survived M-Day—Marvel hoped to use him in this new series, so he was selected as one of the mutant characters to retain their powers in the wake of the event. It’s also why he didn’t show up to join the X-Men on either occasion where they were otherwise gathering the world’s remaining mutants to their standard for what was going to be a last stand against extinction—he already had a slot on another team book and he lacked Wolverine’s ability to be in seven different titles every month. Rico would remain a Loner, relatively on his own with only a group of other former heroes in their new book.

Unfortunately, that new book only lasted 6 issues and wasn’t picked up as an ongoing title (despite my best efforts, but hey—I’m only one man, however handsome). Rico dodged the M-Day bullet only to end up in a swiftly canceled series and back in offscreen limbo—no one else had a place for him now, because the team book he was being saved for failed BUT editorial fiat had the characters making up the team kept together in case they got another shot. And sure enough, they did reappear—this time as supporting characters making a cameo as one of their number, Darkhawk, gets a big push with his own title.

So all this editorial wheeling and dealing that has kept Rico out of the X-Men has left me with a fine mess of explaining why one of the world’s few remaining mutant superheroes would fail to answer the call. Most of his species is effectively gone, there are plenty of people out there looking to finish the job, the premier mutant superheroes in the world—a team he reportedly tried to join and was initially turned down from!—are making an all-hands-on-deck, this-is-the-big-one plea for anyone who’s left to come join the fight… and Ricochet doesn’t go.

Fortunately, I think I have a pretty good set of reasons as to why.

Race Relations
Simply put, I don’t think Ricochet believes in the concept of a Brotherhood of Mutants, and this rejection of the typical Marvelverse take on race relations has informed how I play him in Camp.

It boils down to choosing sides, and frankly I don’t think Rico accepts the issue of mutantkind and humankind’s shared future as any kind of “Us vs. Them” scenario. I play Rico as being someone who doesn’t define himself by his mutation—that is, he identifies as a mutant, that he has a mutation, but that genetic characteristic is not who he is. He sees himself as a human first and a mutant second—that mutants and baseline humans aren’t different species, but part of the same species—he’s just a different kind of human.

I feel justified in doing this for a couple of reasons. First, Rico’s never really been a part of the mutant community—he’s never had exposure to any kind of mutant solidarity, never been a part of any mutant-themed group, but rather has always been the token mutant in a group of otherwise superpowered individuals—and he’s fit in there. So he’s never had the insular, “we can only count on each other” sort of experience that so characterizes the X-Men and their affiliates. He’s more of a multiculturalist, who’s had teammates that run the gamut from normal humans to androids to magically empowered beings.

Second, both who he's fought and who he’s fought with should have clearly shown him that neither mutants nor baseline humans have any kind of monopoly on right or wrong or good or bad. In his career, he’s fought demons, aliens, killer robots, a superpowered mafia, superpowered drug traffickers, mutated sewer rats, common criminals, his former mentor, certain misguided teammates, and both mutant and non-mutant supervillains. Further, mutant terrorists murdered his mother, and a brainwashed mutant superhero killed his non-mutant best friend and former partner. He has seen that there are good mutants and bad mutants just as there are good humans and bad humans.

So where the rest of the Marvelverse is choosing sides based on mutant vs. non-mutant, I play Rico as saying, “That’s bullshit.” If he’s going to draw lines and choose sides, he’d much rather do it on the basis of people who do right vs. people who do wrong—good humans and good mutants vs. bad humans and bad mutants. He’d rather judge his friends and enemies on actions instead of genetic characteristics.

There’s a scene from a very good movie, Gettysburg, that I draw on for inspiration in all this—and with Rico being a film nerd, I don’t consider it a stretch to say that he’s seen it, and only slightly more of a stretch to say that it would’ve influenced him as it has me. In the scene, the idealistic (and historical) Union Colonel, Joshua Chamberlain, is talking with his crustily pragmatic (and fictional) Irish sergeant about what’s the measure of a man and what criteria do you use to determine that. The sergeant’s speech, greatly condensed here, is largely what I have Rico going by:

Sergeant ‘Buster’ Kilrain: The thing is, you cannot judge a race. Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time […] What I'm fighting for is to prove I'm a better man than many of them [(the Southern aristocracy)…] There's many a man worse than me, and some better... But I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. Which is why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved.

This is how I play Ricochet in Camp, with the outlook that group membership does not equal value. Mutant is not automatically good; human is not automatically bad. What matters is not genetic characteristics, but justice—right action instead of wrong action.

So that’s why I feel Ricochet wouldn’t have joined up with the X-Men, because at the moment their recruiting drive is based more on what you are than who you are. It doesn’t hurt that the brainwashed mutant superhero who killed his best friend was Wolverine, either, especially with him being the posterboy of the entire X-Men franchise. But even the Wolverine aspect underscores the rationale I’ve developed for Ricochet here—from his perspective, the X-Men are willing to tolerate a mass-murderer on their team because 1) he’s useful to their cause and 2) he’s a fellow mutant. If that’s all it takes to join, Rico would rather be a Loner.

2nd_slinger @ 2009-02-23T15:50:00

2009-02-23T20:54:40Z

Clothing/Apperance:

--Costume: Ricochet's costume consists of a black and white spandex bodysuit--black leggings, white around the pelvic area. The shirt is like a sports jersey--it has a black front torso panel with a stylized white 'R' on it, but it's white across the shoulders and down the sleeves, and his gloves are also white. The mask is also white with a little black lining around the opaque eye pieces, and it's open at the top so his hair shows. Over the bodysuit he wears a loose-fitting black leather jacket with four throwing discs down the outside of either sleeve.

The colorists sometimes go for a navy blue on his costume instead of black, which occasionally makes the white portions turn up bluish as well. I'm an utter failure when it comes to Photoshop and the like, and haven't ever bothered to edit the icons to match.

--Civvies: In civilian clothes, Rico favors T-shirts, both long and short sleeved. He wears loose jeans or cargo pants, and sneakers like Sketchers or Keds. Sometimes he'll wear his costume jacket, but without the discs on the sleeves.

His eyes are naturally silver and his hair is naturally white; the former is probably an aspect of his mutant status, the latter is just inherited from his non-mutant father. He's a little scruffy looking at times because he doesn't always shave--canon's inconsistent on his level of facial hair, as sometimes he has a very faint goatee and sometimes just an extended soul patch. He's 5'11" and 162 lbs, athletic build with some good muscle mass.

Habits/mannerisms/body language:

In costume Rico's fond of the "Spider-Man crouch," where he'll just settle back on his haunches while everyone else is standing around. Otherwise he rarely sits or stands straight, preferring to slouch or lounge or sit backwards on a chair, etc. He likes to stay moving, and fidgety is probably a good word to describe him--he's usually playing with things in his hands, twirling pens, juggling his discs. His superpower is superhuman agility, so he's effortlessly acrobatic and very fast and well-coordinated.

Current Residence:

The Video-Rama--he sleeps on a futon in the back room.

Typical Daily Routine:

Ricochet tends to sleep in, into the late morning. He'll get up, open up shop at the Video-Rama and just hang around there for a few hours, or else go see what's what with the rest of Camp. In the late afternoon towards dusk, he'll suit up and do a patrol around Camp, winding up at the Library at sundown to meet up with Asta. He'll chill there for a while, and then they usually do a patrol together later in the evening. He's up late doing that, and heads back to the 'Rama for bed early the next morning before dawn.

Favorite Haunts:

The Video-Rama, the Library, the Mess Hall. He used to live in the hospital before transferring to the 'Rama, and he still drops by occasionally to see how things are.

Does he make his own bed?:

... sometimes. Usually only if he has reason to expect company--he's a bit of a slob, otherwise.

[IC: Backdated to Valentine's Day... uh, Night.]

2009-02-16T01:42:24Z

[On the TV screen at the Video-Rama and Porn Hut, Humphrey Bogart and Claude Raines have just begun their long walk from the airfield pondering the potential outcomes of a new and beautiful friendship, and the resident superhero owner/operator has stirred himself from the couch to stop the movie.]

Still as good the second time 'round, princess?

Five Things Meme

2009-02-11T21:15:08Z

I love me a bandwagon.

Ask me a question for Thor, Ricochet, the Spirit, & Xanatos, and I'll give you a quintet of answers!

... ILU Marvel

2009-01-19T23:59:32Z

I'll admit it--I read this comic book, and yet I still have no idea what this is supposed to mean, exactly. Fortunately, it's drawn in pretty broad strokes, enough so that I can sort of make out the general shape of things.

Apparently the general shape of things involves Doctor Doom. And Dracula. On the Moon. No word on whether Steve was there too.

... yeah. If the prospect of moon-Dracula teaming up with Dr. Doom doesn't make you excited, you probably read other sorts of comic books than the ones I do.

IC Christmas Presents: The Lazy Man's Approach

2008-12-16T01:41:43Z

... my current level of fail is sufficient that I'm having trouble getting gifts for people IRL, let alone for folks in a wacky internet hijinks game. BUT. I'm certainly not averse to putting on Ye Olde Thynkyng Cappe as necessary if anyone's curious as to what they'd be getting from: Thor, Ricochet, the Spirit, & Xanatos.

Also note in your comment if you'd like to play out gift-giving shenanigans, 'cause I'm down with that, too.

2nd_slinger @ 2008-12-08T10:29:00

2008-12-08T15:30:24Z

Apologies to those I was threading with last night--my internet cut out, leading to my disappearance, and it has remained out into this morning. I'm now at school and using their internet, but when I left home the connection was still out and I don't know when that'll be resolved. This happened a few weeks ago and my service provider sent a tech out to the house who declared there was nothing wrong with the signal... and then suggested we get a new router. Thanks, genius, but the problem we're having is with the goddamn MODEM, because our home network is still fine and dandy. Despite this stellar tech support, the problem seemed to resolve itself on its own... until last night. And since we have phone service from the same company, our phones are out, too. (Yet for some odd reason, the cable still works. GG, Comcast.)

Not vital enough for CFO, as I'm hoping the matter will be resolved by the time I get home, or at least enough to let me post more when I know more. If things really hit the fan I'll post a more definite notice then.

Catch you on the flip side.

2nd_slinger @ 2008-12-07T21:42:00

2008-12-08T02:48:52Z

Sorry folks, nary an Inferno in sight in this post. No, here I post a link thingy because it's a pretty accurate description of my own experiences with Marvel's latest "Things Will Never Be The Same!" Big Event (tm).

That would be the so-called Secret Invasion. Yeah, I didn't read it either. But I did read those other titles he mentioned here, and they were pretty awesome.

Also yes, Beta Ray Bill is hard to draw. This is because he's a motherfuckin' space horse.

Offscreen Bandwagon

2008-11-21T02:27:19Z

DOES MY CHARACTER DO ANYTHING WITH YOURS OFFSCREEN? WHY NOT? Comment here to see where our characters are crossing paths, and where they're meeting up offscreen.

Thor camps out in the woods when he bothers to sleep, which isn't often--he doesn't need much rest and tends to get most of it by catnapping here and there. Most of the time he's on patrol, just wandering around camp and out into the woods, looking for anything that might catch his interest--luckily for him Camp tends to provide. He trains by himself out near the Barrier, but returns to the Mess Hall and the Library when he's looking for company. Every so often he flies for a bit, but it's not his preferred method of transportation. Thor comes and goes at all hours of the day and night, but if there's a gathering somewhere he'll usually take at least a cursory look before moving on.

Ricochet lives in the Video-Rama's back room, previously alone but now with the recent addition of a kitten named Bailey. He keeps to a semi-nocturnal schedule these days, waking in the late morning and opening the 'Rama up for business around 11. In the late afternoon he closes shop, suits up, and goes on patrol, but always winds up at the Library around sunset. He'll do another, late-night patrol after that, and then head back to the 'Rama to sleep sometime before dawn. That's the structure of his normal day, but he'll often ignore any schedule and just wander around Camp to see what's going on where at odd hours.

The Spirit is in Boys' 19 as a counselor, but he doesn't do much but sleep there. More often he's at the Library, or exploring back tunnels around the Labs, or just observing the goings-on in Camp itself. Unlike Thor or Rico he doesn't really patrol so much as lurk, waiting for bits of interesting action to come to him. He doesn't much like the woods and so keeps more to the inhabited parts of Camp.

2nd_slinger @ 2008-11-18T00:46:00

2008-11-18T06:00:05Z

This just in from Newsarama's Preview of Marvel Titles for February '09.

" WAR OF KINGS: DARKHAWK #1 (of 2)
Written by C.B. CEBULSKI
Penciled by HARVEY TOLIBAO
Cover by BRANDON PETERSON
As WAR OF KINGS approaches, the ascension of Darkhawk begins! New Warrior...Avenger...Intergalactic destroyer?! Chris Powell has been many things over his young life, but now he’s stepping up with a new life on the East Coast and a serious job at Project: P.E.G.A.S.U.S. But when his past comes back to haunt him and new information about his amulet and its legacy are violently brought to light, Darkhawk realizes he may have to face a much darker destiny that he ever realized. All this, plus the return of the Loners... and a reprint of DARKHAWK #1! You know how ANNIHILATION made you look twice at Nova (now star of a critically acclaimed series)? This is where Darkhawk takes off! "

Emphasis mine, of course. WE'RE BACK, BABY... as supporting characters. To Darkhawk.

Wait, WHAT?

I mean, sure I'm happy the team will be getting any sort of play at all, especially by Cebulski since he's spent so much time keeping other writers away from them. And yeah, Darkhawk was always one of my favorite Marvel B-listers, second only to Ricochet among the Loners. But seriously, Marvel--you're already calling that Darkhawk's gonna be the new breakout cosmic star, a la Nova? You really think lightning's gonna strike twice with yet another bucket-headed superhero getting a push? I hope so, but... Dude. It's Darkhawk.

Well, regardless... Rico's back in print come February. Something else to spend money on.

Hiatus Update

2008-10-24T03:37:24Z

So for those of you who didn't catch it, I did a bad thing a few nights back, for which I am heartily sorry. Not. But on the off chance people were wondering why I was mentioning being on hiatus despite having been around an awful lot this week, allow me to clarify my schedule.

I called hiatus at the beginning of October because I had a series of weddings, summer placement interviews, schoolwork, work work, and exams looming on the horizon. At the moment I've gotten one wedding, the work work, and all the interviews out of the way, and in the last couple days have found enough free time to start playing a little bit again. That ends tomorrow night--my two-week exam period starts next Wednesday, and the second wedding is that weekend, and I'll be needing to devote my attention to those things again.

Tomorrow night is probably the last chance I'll have for RP for a little while, although I may stretch that in fits and starts over this weekend. And I'll probably keep chiming in on serious polls and the like as a means of blowing off stress in between studying for and actually taking exams. And hey, maybe I'll be able to make a little time for Halloween shenanigans here and there. But I really shouldn't be around too terribly much for the next two weeks--so if I make random appearances or drop threads more egregiously than usual, that's why.

You may now return to things that actually interest you! See you when I see you, folks.

Meme = Hiatus Breaker!

2008-10-07T20:17:12Z

Thor
IC: "Looking to his front," in infantry terminology--he's here, he believes he's got a job to do, and he's gonna do it without worrying too much about other things. Thor is... content in camp, neither particularly pleased nor dismayed, just accepting of the fact that this is where he is right now. But he's also aware that there's more for him, either out there or in here, and he's waiting (something he's not always very good at) for the opportunity to take the next step. Until then, he's got things to smite and pancakes to eat.

OOC: See immediately above, re: next step taking. I.e., openly proclaiming his godhood would go a long way toward smoothing over the few personal issues that leave him unsettled in camp. The trick with that is it'll probably take something drastic, ICly, for him to reverse his long-standing policy of not emphasizing his godhood while interacting with folks in camp. Also, since Matt Fraction is writing some kickass backstory tales of Thor between where I play him in canon and when he shows up on Earth as a superhero, I'm debating how much I want to emphasize the fact that between now and then, Thor becomes a righteously pompous douchebag who needs to be taken down a few pegs.

Plans: Nothing solid. See above.

Odds of Dropping: Not bloody likely. For all intents and purposes, I now have a Norse god living in my head, and this is where he gets to come out and play--better here than in class discussions, for example.

Ricochet
IC: Partly dejected, partly content--it's complex. Arguing with Asta recently brought up some still unresolved self-confidence and guilt issues (big surprise); the problem being that while he knows everything she said was right, he doesn't know how to go about acting on that realization to solve his issues. Otherwise, he's still pretty decent--he likes where he is in camp, and has been making new friends and/or solidifying certain other relationships, and he's good with that.

OOC: Camp has been good for Rico, and it has bolstered his self-confidence--the trick is gonna be getting him to realize that he can let go of his self-doubt while still retaining his guilt over the deaths in his life. While retaining that guilt isn't ideal, the key step is getting him to recognize that they're separate--he can fix one and then the other; it doesn't have to be both at once. Again, this is a tricky thing to try and play through, and I should probably essay on it.

Plans: I've had a "Movie Scenes Run Rampant" idea for a while now, and I'm just waiting for the right time in my life and the camp cycle to give it a whirl. Ditto with a very specific film related event I had in mind. Halloween season is the anniversary of his meeting Asta; perhaps a post on that could be in the future.

Odds of Dropping: Again, highly unlikely. Rico is the second-easiest of my crew to play, and I like having an outlet for my own nerdity. Even should he happen to lose significant contacts in camp, there's a good chance he'd make it through okay.

The Spirit
IC: Mostly unconcerned about anything, the sole exception being staving off boredom--hence his penchant for tormenting other people with his own particular brand of inanity. He may be ever so slightly lonely in camp, but isn't willing to let down his guard enough to do anything about it... yet. As before, he's still pretty much in watch-and-wait mode when it comes to how he acts in camp, but he's having a hard time shaking off the nagging realization that he's done an awful lot of that in his time here...

OOC: No serious issues here, or rather, the only issue is seriousness--I worry occasionally that I've been overplaying Spirit's goofy irreverence and underplaying the fact that there's something going on behind that, a method to his madness--and even if that is coming across, I worry that I'm not backing it up with anything meaningful when it comes to play. Add to that the fact that I still feel like he's insufficiently connected to camp... More to follow under odds of dropping.

Plans: Nothing worth mentioning--playing Spirit is more about picking something on a whim for me, anyway.

Odds of Dropping: Are you kidding? Spirit is the least work-intensive character EVER--find a post, drop him in, act like a smug jackass, rinse, repeat. It's a wonder people don't hate us yet, because this is his constant M.O. The downside referenced above? What makes him so easy to do this with is that he's not really tied down to anything in camp, aside from a few frequent targets of his pestering (and if he ever manages to alienate them, well... we're fucked). I'd take more effort as a trade off for feeling more settled... and if I can't achieve that, it might be time for the mystery man to slink off into the shadows.

Iroh
IC: Zen doesn't begin to cover it. Iroh has no issues with camp, since it's just yet another fascinating stop on his wacky retirement/vacation roadtrip. He like the people, has found his nephew and teabuddy again, and his niece and her lesbian minions aren't actively trying to kill him... What's not to like?

OOC: ... ahaha. Suffice to say the old man and I have issues, which is probably not in the least surprising. The biggest is my continuing anxiety over achieving his right voice in play--I'm told I do a good job of it (and I'm very grateful for that support) but it's felt increasingly stressful to get it right. I won't dissemble--part of this hiatus I'm ostensibly on is to figure out what I'm going to do with everyone's favorite avuncular tea maven.

Plans: Wait and see. That's my approach.

Odds of Dropping: Pick 'em. If I can work out my issues, rock on. If I can't, well...

... oh, fine. Headcanon Meme

2008-09-18T01:57:16Z

Hit me up for questions about Thor, Ricochet, the Spirit, and Iroh right here.

We interrupt this string of concrit links with a random thingie.

2008-09-12T03:45:52Z

Thanks, Galactus.

I don't really know what Dead Fantasy I & II is, but hey. It's got female video game characters from the Dead or Alive and Final Fantasy franchises (plus special guests!) fighting for no apparent reason, and somewhere in my male chauvinist Neanderthal hindbrain this is appealing.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled concrit requests.

Questions that don't really need answering...

2008-08-25T02:30:19Z

... but I'm bored and the Olympics are over, so. It's almost topical.

Q: How fast is Ricochet?

Pretty damn fast, apparently. But here, let me demonstrate with trivia and math.

There's a scene in canon where Rico throws one of his discs and runs after it, arriving at the target almost simultaneously and catching the disc as it bounces up and off of it. (That's actually the scene depicted in this icon, with the "target" being Gertrude Yorkes' forehead. Sorry, Gert. The progressively darker outline images in the panel indicate Rico's path, and the faint gold line in the middle (over Old Lace's big red eye) is the path of his disc. Velocity aside, I give him props for doing a one-handed cartwheel on a dinosaur's head, because that's awesome at any speed.) Official Marvelverse stats say that Rico's mutant powers grant him the ability to throw his discs with "amazing speed and accuracy." I don't really know what an "amazing" speed would be, but for a frame of reference let's look at a 100 mph fastball pitch.

100 mph translates to ~44.7 meters per second. Even assuming that Rico is 1) not throwing quite that fast and 2) propelling himself slightly slower than his throwing speed anyway, that still puts his speed in the tens of meters per second. For comparison, the record for Olympic sprinters (before Usain Bolt just broke it earlier this week) was 10.35 m/s, set in '96 by Michael Johnson with his time of 19.32 for the 200m. For more comparison, cheetah speed is between 70-75 mph, or ~31-33 m/s.

This is all just fancy number crunching and trivia, or course, because there's nothing solid on Rico's speed in canon other than this particular scene. However, I remember once seeing on the semi-apocryphal Marvel Database website a factoid that put Spider-Man as able to sprint at 100 mph for short distances... And Spidey is the character Rico is based on when it comes to powers. Assuming the folks at the MDB aren't just pulling numbers out of their asses, and given the nice round number of 100 mph throwing speed, I don't really have a problem of putting Ricochet at that speed level for headcanon purposes. It might not be blur-tastic, but it'll do.

Icon Memery

2008-08-20T01:01:51Z

4.

0. CURRENT DEFAULT ICON

1. NEWEST ICON

2. OLDEST ICON

3. HAPPIEST ICON

4. SADDEST ICON

5. ANGRIEST ICON

6. SEXIEST ICON

7. CUTEST ICON

8. ICON WITH THE HIGHEST POWER LEVEL

9. MOST FREQUENTLY USED ICON

10. ICON THAT YOU DON'T GET TO USE ENOUGH

11. WE'RE GOING TO CANDY MOUNTAIN, CHARLIE

12. OTP
... I MEAN

13. ICON WITH YOUR FAVORITE KEYWORDS

"[mjolnir] every problem a nail"
"Julie sez: 'Bad Rico--no cookie'"
"I love it when a plan comes together"
"* Draco Occidentalis"

14. THIS SPACE FOR RENT