Scarlet_Jezabel

Over on Virtue, I haven't seen an announcement all night, so yeah it looks like three TFs went through.

Scarelt Jezabel held out her ID card, eyes barely focusing behind her wraparound shades. "Jes.. Jessalyn Beall," she managed. "I..." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "I'm sorry, I'm not used to this."

She coughed, then let out another cry. "This shouldn't... shouldn't have happened." She looked back and forth between Void Blazer and the security/medic team. "It was just a group of Thorns, for... AGH, for crying... ...ing out loud."

"Unemployment's up again... more Snakes in Mercy... protesters... I bet Statesman doesn't have these problems."

((Jumpin' in feet first! Wahoo!))

"This must be the place," Jezabel grunted, and moved closer to the clinic. She staggered momentarily, clutching her side and grimacing. After a pause to catch her breath, the large woman made her way into the building, one hand pressed against her abdomen. "Excuse me," she began, then doubled over, letting out a hoarse cry of pain. The blood showed black against her dark gray hand when she lifted it up to look.

She swore quietly and reeled, looking around for directions to the ER.

[ QUOTE ]
Why is it ok to get debt in pve but folks freak out if it is in pvp? That thought process is completely backwards to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Because you die LOTS more often in PvP zones. Going into a PvP zone and not dying to me means the sides are way unbalanced (and they often are) or you're barely participating.

I go into PvP expecting to be taken out. When I go PvE (which is a lot more often, let me tell you), I don't expect it. This isn't "City of Random People Getting Their @$$es Kicked," it's "City of Heroes/City of Villains." Yes, dying (and debt) is part of the game.

I remember being absolutely furious when I reached level ten and when the I5 came out the very next day there was no debt below level ten. Believe me when I say I'm used to debt as a part of the game (and it beats the ever-loving tar out of XP-loss). Penalties for dying are fine. But in PvP, dying is such a part of the game that they should be minimized.

PvP makes sense in a game like this, absolutely. It should be fun, though. Winning is always fun. The challenge is to make this aspect so much fun that the prospect of losing isn't a deterrent.

The fact is, I don't see a solution for this. Any solution is going to upset SOMEBODY.

[ QUOTE ]
Start small. Ask advice. Work your way up. Don't be surprised when you're not welcomed immediately, especially if you've blown it in the past.

[/ QUOTE ]

A few things to note if you do decide to try again, Mezmoriser:

1) It is highly unlikely, given the number of heroes in Paragon City, that the people in the thread know who you are right off the bat.

2) What makes a story good, or a good story great, isn't the awesome uberness of the characters' powers. It isn't the triumph of good over evil. It's the inherent humanity of the characters. Think about it:

Spider-man is probably one of the lamest hero concepts ever. He's strong, yeah, but there are a lot of stronger heroes in the Marvel universe. He's smart, too, but there are people a lot stronger than him. He can climb up walls. Okay, now, at the time that was pretty original, but let's face it, if your primary super-power is the ability to stick to vertical surfaces, you've got a long way to go before you strike terror into the hearts of evildoers. He invented little wristbands that shoot spider-web type material out of them. Um. Come on. The closest thing we have to that in CoH is Web Grenades, and how often do you see people using that?

So, all in all, Spidey's a pretty weak excuse for a superhero, face it. But he's popular. Why? Because under the spandex is a guy -- he was a kid when this all started, remember? -- we've grown to care about. He's kind of a sad sack without the costume. Picked on by bullies. Shy. Has the boss from hell. (In fact, there's another thread here in the Hero/Villain culture forum about just HOW bad his boss is!)

When you get down to it, Spider Man isn't about UB3R-5P1D3R out there kicking villain butt. It's about little Peter Parker pretending to be more confident than he is because people need him to be. Remember (and this works whether you've seen the movie or read the comics from way-back like me), he's doing this out of guilt over the death of his uncle.

It's the humanity of the characters that drives even the most inhuman of them to do the things they do.

Batman, no matter how cold he pretends to be, is doing what he does because inside is little lost Bruce Wayne, wondering how something so horrible could have happened to his parents with him standing right there.

Superman, arguably the first really SUPER superhero, has, over the decades, become more and more about Clark and Lois and Jimmy and all of their friends than about TEH UB3R IN BL00.

The entire point of the X-Men, from their inception, was that these were to be young guys and gals (high-school and college age) coming to grips with being basically human in a world that doesn't treat them as humans. (In fact, when Jack Kirby brought back concept sketches of Wolverine to Stan Lee -- when they were starting the second X-Men series -- Stan remarked that the sideburns made him look about twenty years older than he intended.)

I'd go on a bit longer here, because this is something I feel strongly about, but I've got to head off for (ugh) work. Here's what I think you need to do.

Open up notepad or wordpad or Word or Ami Pro or whatever and type the following form, then fill it out. Even if you never post thing one from this form, it will help you roleplay the character.

NAME: Mezmoriser (apologies if it's misspelled)
REAL NAME:
AGE:
PRIMARY MOTIVATING FACTOR:
BACKSTORY:
FRIENDS/RELATIVES:

The more information you can come up with here, the better thought-out your posts will be. Your character needs personality. He needs a reason for who and what he is. And that reason does not necessarily need to be apparent, but it needs to be felt.

[ QUOTE ]
(OOC: Look for the Whitmoore in the RP section of the Forum boards Our Tenants spand all the shards. Have fun and welcome aboard. See you on the otherside Hero.)

[/ QUOTE ]

We can also be found blathering OOCly in the "Whitmoore Apts" global chat channel in the game. Also of note is the "RP Congress" chat channel, which, while global, particularly caters to the RP crowd on Pinnacle.

Despite having said that, however, I'm pretty much a Virtue addict. (Going for that nonexistant "Virtuous" badge, dontcha know!)

-====edit====-
"RP Congress" is an IC channel. OOC blather is supposed to be kept to the "RPC OOC" channel, but nobody uses it anymore. They all pretty much enclose any OOC blather in (( double parentheses )) and keep it to a minimum.

(( The incomparable Troy_Hickman has been giving out villainous Noms de Guerre, and gifted me with the wonderful name of "Mary, Queen of Shots". After googling quotes by Mary, Queen of Scots, I had to write the Queen of Shots' origin story. ))

"No more tears now; I will think about revenge."
--Mary, Queen of Scots

My name is.... my name WAS Margaret Quin.

Margaret Quin is dead. She died with her family and friends. She was killed, brutally murdered, by so-called heroes.

Heroes whose quest for fame and adulation leaves nothing standing. Heroes who just jog past muggings, thinking to let some newer, less famous hero do the dirty work.

My mother, Jeanette Quin (nee Hamilton) was killed by a mugger when a passing hero could have saved her -- but was in a rush to get someplace with "tougher" bad guys. My father was crushed by the falling wreckage of the monstrosity known as Paladin.

He had no way of knowing where the battle was taking place. He was fleeing the scene of yet another "heroic" struggle. Heroes did this.

I won't even mention my goldfish. Just believe me when I say that so-called "Fire Tankers" should be kept on a leash.

I've had it.

There is no turning back now.

There's no place to turn back to.

There's no one to meet me there if I did.

Now, it's just me and the heroes.

And my gun.

Goodbye, Maggie Quin.

Say hello to Mary, Queen of Shots.

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe people think I'm just the crazy stalker type.


[/ QUOTE ]

Couldn't be the avatar, could it? Naaaaah.

Supervillan? Supervillain? I dressed up like this to go on "Let's Make a Deal!" Door number one, Monty!
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Recluse: Let me get this straight. Statesman gets to team up with Sister Psyche. I get a dead chick.
Ghost Widow: Excuse me?
Recluse: I mean, ah, that poor slob, Statesman. I get to team up with Ghost Widow, and all he gets is Sister Yumm--- I mean, Sister Psyche.
Ghost Widow: ....
Recluse: You're going to hurt me now, aren't you?
Ghost Widow: Immensely, Lord.
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Recluse and Statesman, arm in arm: o/~ We're men... we're men in tiiiiiiiiiights.... o/~
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Dear diary... I think maybe that armor salesman was lying when he said "chicks dig spider-arms on the uniform."
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And now, the citizens of Paragon City shall feel the wrath of... the TYOP DENMOS!
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Recluse: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! *hands in air* STUNT DOUBLE!
Stunt Double: And you thought YOU had a lousy job.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling capes and their stupid anime cat-girl!
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Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're about to put the final touches on your plan for revenge and you realize you've been fighting the Statesman in your underwear?
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BRB -- Bio.
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And you say this... "Amway"... will help me on the path to world domination?
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AAAAH! TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP TP!!!!!!!!! *splat*
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Anyone got any Awakens?
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Wait.... plan? Since when do I have to make the plans?
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Statesman -- can this wait? Divorce Court is on.

And now, Statesman, you shall feel the-- ...aw, [censored]. Line?

And now, Statesman, you shall feel the wrath of my gnomish armies. Did I just say gnomish? Gnomish armies? Really? Great, now we're gonna have to loop this AGAIN.

And now, Sta-- *splutters and bursts out laughing*

And now, Statesman, y-- my mask slipped. Makeup! Can-- I can't see. No, seriously, I think it's stuck.

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Okay, wait, wait, wait. YOU'RE going to save the city? Well... That's what *I* was doing! No, really, I was all set to be the new superhero, I thought you were the bad guy!

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(Sinister voice -- as if he could speak any other way) Ah, Statesman. How nice of you to drop in like this. Canape?

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I hope you realize, you're paying for that Death Ray, Statesman. I've got lawyers! You wouldn't BELIEVE the number of laywers I've got.

And now, Statesman, you shall feel the-- ...aw, [censored]. Line?

And now, Statesman, you shall feel the wrath of my gnomish armies. Did I just say gnomish? Gnomish armies? Really? Great, now we're gonna have to loop this AGAIN.

And now, Sta-- *splutters and bursts out laughing*

And now, Statesman, y-- my mask slipped. Makeup! Can-- I can't see. No, seriously, I think it's stuck.

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Okay, wait, wait, wait. YOU'RE going to save the city? Well... That's what *I* was doing! No, really, I was all set to be the new superhero, I thought you were the bad guy!

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(Sinister voice -- as if he could speak any other way) Ah, Statesman. How nice of you to drop in like this. Canape?

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I hope you realize, you're paying for that Death Ray, Statesman. I've got lawyers! You wouldn't BELIEVE the number of laywers I've got.

Darque Kitten hisses and takes a step back from the upset female human. She feels a low growl building in her throat. All she wanted to do was go... somewhere... and do important things. It was so hard to remember.

Now, two humans were making angry noises at each other, a third, blue one, was trying to hide while his fur-or-whatever was making other human-type noises.

She was getting a headache, and began to emanate the drifting shadow that kept her alive and well on the streets of Paragon. (( Dark Embrace and Death Shroud anyone? ))

-=BEGIN OOC BLOCK=-
I haven't seen any food fights or anything like that in these forums, so I thought I would create and/or revive -- I'm not going to go through tons of pages of threads to see if it once existed -- a silly IC thread.


It's a simple enough concept, in three parts.
1) What does your 'toon do on the monorail?
B) What about lots of 'toons on the same monorail?
III) Pretty near all at once?

This is partly inspired by the PvPOnline comic that came with the DVD set, and partly by having my defender perched atop the overhang inside the monorail station in Skyway for about five minutes and watching the heroes go by.
-=END OOC BLOCK=-

Darque Kitten scrambled along the street, dropping to all fours for speed. It didn't actually make her go faster -- in fact, quite the opposite -- but it was a reflex. She had to get to King's Row, and quickly. The nice man in the blue suit had asked her to do something important there.

She reached the Yellow Line and scrambled up the ramp, panting with equal parts exertion and eager anticipation. As she headed towards the monorail car, the teller behind the window noticed her ID hanging dogtag-style from her collar and waved her through. She'd be there in moments.

She piled aboard the monorail, grinning ferally in anticipation of the fun she would have playing with the Hellions in their hideout, and began to purr.

Oh, EXPLETIVE! I can't edit my previous post. =u.u=

(( And for purposes of scale, DK's 6'2" and around 200lbs, with an athletic build. ))

For level and power references I will be updating my character sheet(s) as I level up the characters in the game. Also, as backstory for each character is revealed (and they all have it, so there), it'll be there. The following two characters may or may not be introduced to the Whitmoore Apartments thread, but I do so love playing them in CoH, so probably at some point they'll be added in. Like the current crisis, where Tanks and Healers could come in handy?

Name: Evyrgreen
Real Name: Gaoth Síorghlas (pron. GEEH SHYORglas, translates to "Evergreen Wind")
Apartment: None as yet. Apparently lives in a tree?
Age: Unknown, probably a lot older than she looks.
Apparent Age: Late teens, early twenties.
Height: 4'3 3/4"
Weight: 73lbs 6oz (give or take. She keeps floating off the scale just to annoy people.)
Skin: Light green
Hair: Dark green
Eyes: Emerald
Registered Hero Class: Defender
Primary Power Set (Empathy): Healing Aura, Absorb Pain, Resurrect
Secondary Power Set (Psychic): Mental Blast, Psionic Lance, Psychic Scream
Power Pool Powers: Hover, Fly
Personality: Claims to be a member of the Daoine Sidhe (pron. DUHnee SHEE, "People of the Hills"), or irish fairies. Given her thick irish brogue and almost constant use of irish gaelic, she at the very least knows enough about the Sidhe to fake it.

She takes a certain barbaric delight in dashing into a fray, claiming that she's a celt (undeniably true) and that fighting is what celts do best (historically proven). Despite her seeming love for a good dust-up, she's a very dedicated healer, often choosing the expedient of taking her patient's wounds for herself rather than let them expire.

Despite her claims to be one of the noble Sidhe and her dedication as a healer, she is, outside of a crisis situation, almost obnoxiously playful.
-----------------------------------
Name: Scarlet Jezabel
Real Name: Jessalyn Beall
Height: 8'3"
Weight: Somewhere in the quarter-ton range. Beyond that, it's neither polite nor sane to ask an eight-foot powerhouse her weight.
Skin: Dark grey
Hair: Blood red
Eyes: ??? (Never removes wraparound shades.)
Apartment: None yet. Still lives in old apartment -- considering moving due to extreme lack of secret identity. (See below, or just her measurements above.)
Registered Hero Class: Tanker
Primary Powerset (Invulnerability): Resist Physical, Dull Pain
Secondary Powerset (Super Strength): Jab, Punch
Power Pool Powers: Hasten
Personality: While outwardly gruff and bitter about her obviously no-longer human form (being an eight-foot stone wall, as she refers to herself sometimes, makes it difficult to get on with a normal life, so she has no secret identity), secretly, as a resident of the crime-ridden neighborhood known as the Gish, Scarlet Jezabel is very happy with her new, powerful body.

You might have seen her flyer nailed to telephone poles (wooden or otherwise, super-strength has its advantages):
[ QUOTE ]
Putting together an ad-hoc team?
Certain doom impending?
CALL SCARLET JEZABEL, THE DIAL-A-TANK!


[/ QUOTE ]
The number on the flyer is her cel-phone. Research shows that while a relatively low security level (SL9 at the time of this posting), she has a rather remarkable success rate even for Paragon, both teamed and solo.

(( Apologies if some of these have been done before. ))
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(Broadcast) Lord Recluse: Lv 14 Emp/Psy Defender LFT for FF
(Local) Lord Recluse chuckles darkly, waiting for his bait to be taken...
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(TELL)-->Statesman: Can you SK me?
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HAY A GRL LETS CYBR!!!

Heroine Name: Darque Kitten
Real Name: Unknown.
Theme Song: Poe, "Hey Pretty" I don't know why, she just has that sort of mellow groove in my mind.
Origin: Human researcher "cursed" by Bast, or at least an enchanted statue of said deity. Somewhere deep beneath all the kittiness is this poor woman trying to remember who she is.

(( *low whistle* Over 700 pages of RP! I would like to join in, so here's my bio at the moment. Feel free to tell me to ---- off. ))

Apartment: Underneath stairs, northwest stairwell.
Name: Darque Kitten
Current Location: (TBD, have not joined RP yet)
Storyteller: Darque_Kitten
Class/Origin: Magic Scrapper
Powersets: Dark Melee, Dark Armor, Speed, Leaping
Summary: There's just something odd about Darque Kitten. It's not difficult to identify: Not only does she look like one of the anime-cat-girl type heroes often found around Paragon City, but she behaves very much like a cat that happens to be walking on her hind legs. She seems incapable of communicating except by a combination of body language and feline vocalizations. She's taken up residence, much like any stray, underneath the stairs in the Northwest wing of the apartments.

"Oh, for the love of... CAN YOU KEEP THE FIGHTING DOWN?! My souffle fell."

"Hi. Do you know who I am? A lot of people don't. That's why I carry the 'Supervillain Express' card. Don't leave your lair without it."

Jesalyn Beall looked at herself in the full-length mirror and frowned. "Other heroes," she sighed, "get secret identities." Given the young woman's remarkable stature (a rather athletically muscled 8'3") -- and notable (charcoal grey) skin coloration -- the idea of a secret identity was simply ludicrous.

"Not me," her ex-college-roomie chimed in cheerfully. The Scarlet Jezabel -- no point in thinking of herself as Jesalyn anymore -- looked over her shoulder at the irritatingly perky girl reclining in her couch.

"You're not a hero, Candy."

Candace Barre frowned at her friend. "I asked you not to call me that."

"How can you hate your name so much?" Jezabel lowered her mirrored shades to look at Candace.

"Oh, my GAWD, like you wouldn't if your sicko parents had named YOU 'Candy Barre.'"

"I'm sure they weren't thinking about that at the time," Jezabel muttered, lost in dark thoughts about her own mother, and that woman's part in her 'heroic' origin.

"Oh," Candace said with a bitter smile, "they TOTALLY were." She stood up and fished in her purse.

That thing's barely big enough for an ID card. God, save me from high fashion. Sure enough, Candace pulled out a card that made Jezabel's blood run cold.

"You didn't."

Candace grinned and nodded enthusiastically. "Yup! Registered this morning!"

Jezabel clapped a hand to her face, not wanting to look at Candace's superhero registration card but not able to look away. "Candace... you don't have any powers."

"I can fight," the indomitably chipper girl responded.

"Candace, you have a BROWN BELT," Jezabel sighed, trying to knock some reality into her friend's skull without using her overly-potent fists.

"Catscratch," Candace said.

"Who-what?"

"Catscratch," she said again. "You know like that song by Noodgie?"

There was something, Jezabel thought with a mental growl, incurably wrong with someone who referred to Ted Nugent as 'Noodgie'. "Catscratch," she echoed, looking her friend in the eye. "Why the hell would you go with Catscratch? I mean, if maybe you were some sort of mutant half-cat or werecat or something--"

"I got a tail."

"You bought it at an anime convention!"

"I made it work, though. Ran myoelectric fiber through it and put all kinds of neurosensors in the base so it moves like it's real."

"Wonderful. You shall no doubt overwhelm the Circle of Thorns with your indefatigable cuteness."

Candace, or Catscratch, stuck her tongue out. "Just you wait," she said. "We're gonna show those jerks what for!"

Jezabel flinched, and inadvertantly crumpled the steel mug in her hand, driving stone-hard fingers through it and rendering it useless. "WE?!"

"I'm gonna be your sidekick!"

Jezabel felt the sort of cold, writhing terror usually reserved for encounters with the Great Old Ones in a Lovecraft novel -- or her own encounters with the Circle of Thorns. "Did you ever think of asking me about this?"

"Jez, you're my best friend!"

"Candace--"

"CATSCRATCH!"

Jezabel sighed. "Catscratch, fine, whatever. Did it ever occur to you that there might be a reason I up and disappeared when this --" she gestured at her oversized, overpowered body, "-- happened to me?"

Candace looked confused -- a look she had a real mastery of, Jezabel thought. "I thought it was 'cause you were afraid they'd think you were a freak an' all."

"Oh, great, THANKS, Can-- Catscratch, that makes me feel so much better."

"I don't think you're a freak."

"No, you seem to think that I'm a role-model. Catscratch, I'm what the heroes here in Paragon call a Tanker. My job is to charge headlong into a group of bad guys and deal as much damage as possible while I get my butt kicked." She rubbed the back of her head, which had a fair lump on it caused earlier that day by an overenthusiastic Troll with a length of 2x4. "I cannot emphasize this enough: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME."

Catscratch's confused look was swept away by a look of concern. Damn it, it was touching, Jezabel thought, and she realized that perhaps she had fled her friends because she was afraid of their reaction to her new body. It also made her realize that, while she had a couple of heroic friends, she really needed a friend from before her transformation just to keep her sane.

"I moved here," Jezabel said, "to get away from people who could be hurt or even killed if some thug found me at home and knocked me through a wall or something."

She crossed her powerful arms over her chest and glared down at her friend -- it was difficult, Catscratch was giving her best Puppy-Dog-Eyes expression -- and continued. "A plan which you've ruined by repeatedly coming to visit me here!"

Catscratch flinched back in the couch, looking all too much like a harmless little kitten -- which only steeled Jezabel's resolve to break her of this dangerous delusion that she could be anyone's sidekick and not get severely hurt.

As Jezabel tossed Catscratch out of her apartment and bolted the door behind her, the would-be heroine stuck her tongue out at the reinforced steel door. "Fine," she said. "We'll do it the hard way. Tailing you on patrol will give me some good practice anyway."

--==FIN==--
...for now...