Sunday 12 October 2003
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Pic of the day: Interestingly, the template for the male character is less based on me than on Mike from the anime Onegai Twins, shown here at his beloved computer. OK, there is one similarity right there. But still ... Not exactly in my imageWelcome to the second of two entries where I babble about my home-made fictional characters which I hope to use in the National Novel Writing Month, an informal stampede of amateurish novel writing where the only goal is to get to 50 000 words and feel good about it. Quality is for people who have talent, training, and time ... and a professional editor. This may come later, to a few. My contribution is probably to be more like the dirt from which the beautiful flowers grow. ^_^* That said, perhaps one or two readers will prefer this over simply "Wasted the day playing games and planning for NaNoWriMo", which is also pretty close to the truth. If you prefer the short version, please move on. Nothing to see here. Unless something horrible befalls me, I should be back with some other type of entry before too long, so keep your bookmarks ready. ***Continued from yesterday.
Male protagonist: Backstory: Jon was born out of wedlock, his father is unknown. His mother committed suicide shortly after his birth. He spent his first two years with his maternal grandparents, who blamed him for their daughter's death and hated his guts. After two years, he was transferred to a foster home. He was at this time small, weak, bruised and malnourished. He spent the next six years being sent from foster home to foster home, none of them wanting to keep him because of his disturbing eyes. From age 8 to 12 he lived with a strongly religious family. They firmly believed him to be conceived by a devil, but since he was half human they thought he could still be saved. He got along well with Rune, a boy his own age, and his only childhood friend. Spending much of his time on Bible reading, prayer and meditation, he learned to turn his mind inward. Sadly for his foster parents, what he found there was not what they had hoped. Around the age of 12 he started to develop psychic powers, and they eventually gave up on him. He lived with some other foster parents after this, none of which became close to him, and at the age of 16 he started to live alone. At this time he got his blue contact lenses and moved to another part of the country where no one knew him. At high school he excelled in classes but was always alone. After school, he has worked as an independent software developer. Powers: Jon has a wide range of "superpowers", none of which are useful in catching criminals or saving the world: Dark Sight: Jon can see through walls, or clothes, or skin for that matter, within a radius of approximately 10 meters/yards. (This just might be useful in a medical profession, but he gets sick seeing blood. Still he keeps toying with the thought of becoming a doctor one day.) He can also see in the dark. The second sight does not show colors, all things are shown in a color he calls "twilight blue". In the night, he can extend the radius of his dark-sight to about 100 meters, although the further he stretches it, the greater the chance that it will snap back to the original 10 meters radius. Seeing through objects is much harder to extend. (For several years, Jon believed that all adults could see through clothes. This was based on comments he had overheard about undressing people with the eyes. He can probably count himself lucky that it was this power that developed early and not his telekinesis...) Teleportation: As well as seeing through walls, Jon can move through walls, or anywhere else within the 10 meters radius. He moves instantly from one place to another, no matter what might be between. He can extend this radius to about 100 meters when there are no objects inbetween, but the longer the distance the greater the chance of failure, and he will arrive as exhausted as if he had run the same distance at his best speed. Telekinesis: Jon can move objects with his mind. He is fairly strong in this, but lacks control. He can easily break a window or even a chair by looking hard enough, but he could not pick up a pencil with his mind. He would most likely throw it across the room, possibly crush it. For this reason he rarely ever uses or even thinks of this power. It is for emergency only. Heat resistance: While avoiding open flame, Jon is unaware that you cannot drink boiling water. Nobody has told him, so far. Tactile telepathy: When touching another person, Jon can read their thoughts and emotions. The chance is less if there is a thin layer of clothes between their skins. During direct skin-to-skin contact (which is rare indeed) the telepathy may kick in spontaneously, which is how he discovered it late in his childhood. Dark healing: Jon can heal minor wounds or even cure everyday infections like diarrhea or common cold in himself or others. The problem is that the cure is worse than the problem: The affected area is wracked with excruciating pain, "like black fire" according to the only other person he has tried it on. Jumpback: Jon can jump a few seconds back in time. This happens automatically in the most dire emergency, but can also be done consciously with hard concentration. He rarely ever does, though. It leaves him exhausted, but worse than that: Each jump seems to shunt him into a slightly different parallel timeline, where he will find some familiar elements gone or replaced. This could be some of his books or CDs, or even his phone number could be different. So far the details have been minor, but after a few tries he is very reluctant to ever use it again unless lives are at stake. Personality: Jon is shy, accustomed to rejection. Even cats and dogs hate his guts. He avoids violence and confrontation at all costs, partly because he does not trust himself. He is frequently plagued by nightmares about committing over-the-top violence. Despite this, he is actually quite lonely and can be found on numerous message boards and IRC channels, where he feels safe. On the Net, nobody can see your eyes ... Origin: Nobody knows why Jon is the way he is. The midwife thought his eyes were just an unfortunate mutation, and a couple ophthalmologists have expressed the same view later in life. The appearance of unnatural abilities seems to exclude this. Even the Marvel universe doesn't have mutants with so varied abilities, and all in one generation. Jon leans mostly to the view expressed by his religious foster parents (and his grandparents, although he has no contact with them now): That he is begotten by a demon who raped (or possibly seduced) his mother during some dark ritual. He supports this partly by his violent dreams, as he doesn't know that such dreams are common in victims of childhood abuse or long-term bullying, particularly when they try to gloss over it all. A more hopeful note is that he might be a result of flying saucers kidnapping his mother and doing some gene splicing to improve the human gene pool. If so, the aliens have a lot to learn about interstellar diplomacy. Attitude: Jon appreciates the ability to look through cupboards without opening them, walking outside at night without a flashlight, and passing through the door without having to unlock and lock it. But frankly he would have given up all of this in a heartbeat to live a normal life with his mother, whom he idolizes. If only he were normal, all things would be good, he would be rich, happy, popular and have a loving girlfriend and a playful cat and a faithful dog. In short, behind those eyes Jon is much like the rest of us ... ***I hope you agree with me that this is not particularly autobiographic. Well, except the nightmares about violence, which I sincerely believe could happen to anyone who represses a lot of aggression and tries to forget it. OK, a certain talent for software development. (Actually the inspiration for this came from the anime Onegai Twins, where the male protagonist is a high school kid and still owns a small home, thanks to his programming skills.) |
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