So… today I should have a chapter up… it won’t be ready today. How can I say I’m still on track then? Well, it’s ALMOST done. It’ll get posted either Friday the 15th or Saturday the 16th. That obviously leaves a crunch for 34 and 35 but I CAN do this!
In other news, I want to thank you all so much for the big help you’ve provided in responding to my prompt and giving me ideas for how you view the characters (some of which I know I’m using!). So, last time I asked your opinions on what shows all the characters would like. Let’s flip the script a bit here. Let’s flesh out some of the ideas for Robynne’s favorite comic series, Collider!
Collider is a super-heroine based upon something Pip came up with for his Mercynaries series. I’ve appropriated gotten his permission to use the title for Robynne’s favorite comic book hero. Collider has simple powers of super-strength and momentum-manipulation (she bounces off of things and has things bounce off of her in ways that defy physics). I’m trying to think of some villains who could be interesting for her to fight, other heroes and heroines she can fight with, a super-team she’s joined before, and maybe some fake sagas I could namedrop here soon as Robynne WILL be surrounded by nerds. I look forward to the help you all will no-doubt provide!
Thanks for all the encouragement!
Taralynn
Collider reminds me immediately of Assault from Worm. As such, I have little choice but to recommend a villain who can charge energy within himself when not moving and release it for short bursts of immense speed, strength, and subtle electromagnetism. Preferably said villain would then turn good later. Though perhaps that’s a bit too obvious. 😀
Whoa, another Worm fan? Crazy! I thought of assault immediately as well. And Bambina, what with the bouncing.
A Battery parallel would be interesting, though may not provide much challenge for a bit. She wasn’t able to do much to Madcap on her own, after all. Now, someone who could dampen acceleration and inertia and what not? They could be a good arch nemesis.
Villain: Immovable Rodd (think reverse juggernaut)
Heroes: The Point (shoots beams from hands by doing finger guns), North (a polar bear that can talk), Wheel Girl (able to use anything with wheels)
Hero team: The Stoppers
Sagas: Glass Houses, In Your Shoes, Dragon Plane, Equal Reaction, Rat Lab.
I was thinking along the lines of What Shadowmaster said. A villain called Inertia who when moving can absorb the inertia from anything thrown at him (her) to go faster (ie bullets, fists…) stopping said object in its tracks. And when standing still can amplify their own inertia to the point as to be immovable (as in the immovable object).
Heh, I’d forgotten Bambina! So many people to keep track of in Worm. ^^; Honestly if we’re looking for the biggest “challenge” it would probably be something like Accelerator from ACMI- but then again, someone like that is an enormous challenge to EVERYBODY, so that doesn’t mean much. Maybe we’re thinking too straightforwardly here. “Hard” counters are annoying as arch-nemises, though a “soft” counter to momentum redirection is difficult to imagine. Someone that lessens impacts or isn’t affected by them would work, as would someone with all encompassing defense properties. Tough to say, especially if you want to make it interesting. This is just something that would be mentioned in passing, I imagine, so perhaps I’m putting too much thought in to it.
…speaking of which, I have Worm-fic to work on while I still have time. Better go do that. 🙂
You write worm fics too? Oh man. Which one?
Er, I really only just finished Worm and the end of February or so, after which I had to tear through all the fanfiction available, so I really only just got started. I’m writing a fic called Ill-Equipped, a sort of twist on all the trump-Taylor power fics that have her copying or getting powers from others and such. Particularly on Heels Over Head, actually, which was the main inspiration. I’m putting up the second chapter tomorrow.
(Sorry about talking about something only pseudo-related to your own story Taralynn. We’ll try to keep it to a minimum. ^^;)
I’ve never even heard of Worm. Is it something I need to try out?
Hmmmm…interesting things to think about. The Collider series sounds like it would have a lot of physics-based elements to it, which makes Robynne’s love of the series make perfect sense. If you want to go by the equation, then momentum = mass x velocity, so a villain who could manipulate the mass of things could be a powerful enemy for Collider to face. Then again, that’s a “hard” counter like Flairina was talking about, so it might not be that interesting. Then again…again…it’s not like the whole Collider mythos needs to be fleshed out with interesting characters and a good narrative. Then again again again, Robynne probably wouldn’t like a series that was only superficially good…
As far as names go, it could be fun to have them be mostly physics-related (Or maybe that’s just my dynamics coursework desperately trying to justify itself…). “Damper” and “Plastique” could be villains, since damping and plasticity are the big ways that collisions lose energy. Something like “The Black Hole” could be the mass-controlling villain, since it’s ominous and bold, but still descriptive.
Now my brain is just filling with really cheesy physics/comics mashups. “Collider and the Three Body Problem,” “Collider escapes the Frictionless Vacuum.”
On a less goofy note, some saga names for the Collider comics could be the “Event Horizon” saga, especially if the Black Hole theme slips in there somewhere. A more nuanced one could be the “Restitution” story arc. The word fits for the kind of story where the hero loses early on and then spends the rest of the saga bringing things back to how they were before the villain won. Then, it ties back to Collider because the “coefficient of restitution” is a value in the equations for collisions that basically describes how energetic a collision is.
My math brain had fun with this one.
I find it funny that in League of Legends, Lux has a skin that’s Called “Spirit Guardian” and it turns Lux into a magical girl
I would most definitely recommend Worm. I don’t even like pure “superhero” universes generally- Worm is the major exception. Well, a good deal of anime can get by too, but to a lesser degree.
Do be warned, it gets described as “dark” a lot, which is true, but there’s always a REASON for that dark if you keep going, and it never grated on me or became difficult to read. Instead it just gets more exciting as time goes on and stakes get raised over, and over, and over again. At 1.5 million words or so it’s not something you can power through, but you definitely WANT to. Wildbow is a masterful writer, giving you just enough each chapter to tease you in to reading the next one- at 3 AM in the morning. There are interludes that let us peak in to the minds of other characters as well, which manage in one chapter to leave you wanting much more.
So yes, I would say so. It is a hugely enjoyable read, I cannot recommend it enough. (I’m still so busy tearing through fanfiction for it that I haven’t gotten anywhere with the author’s other completed work of fiction, or the currently ongoing one they’re working on right now.)
Yeah, this’ll be the last of the derail from me, too. Just gonna throw out another rec for Worm (Wildbow is one of two web authors I’m following. The other should be obvious, since I’m here.) I’ll give your fic a look, Flairina. If you wanted to/haven’t stumbled upon mine, I post them under Para_Docks. Medic, Revealed, The Reaping, and Other side of the coin are mine. I…kind of went a little nuts there.
Back to heroes and villains for this story, I definitely dig the idea of there being a physics theme. Colloder could carry the clout of being more scientifically fueled than other comics in the MGP universe, maybe. I still put forth someone who dampens movement. Maybe someone who’s body is composed of jon-neutonian fluid could be a hard counyer for her as well?
For teammates, maybe someone who can turn into or merge with inorganic material? He could turn into a wall at any time for her to bounce off of. That being said, someone who could create barriers could provide that same benefit and more. Every team should have a healer of some sort, too.
Team names are tough…maybe something like The Guards? The Watchers? The Righteous Guild?
Oh, hey, I’m subscribed to The Reaping already. Don’t really comment at all, but GU!Taylor is something I’m always down for. 😀 I’ll look in to the others when I get around to it.
Hmm. I can think of two villains that I believe would work as a foil for Collider. First would be someone like The Blob from X-Men, who could work as a defensive foil against Collider’s power. He was a giant, immovable mass that completely negated damage from Rogue’s super strength or Wolverine’s Adamantium claws. To go with a Physics theme, could call him “The Mass” or “Colloid” (as in a colloidal gel, which may have the benefit of added banter from enemies/teammates about how their names are similar). Could be a throwaway character that occasionally pops up to aid another villain like in X-Men, or could be some kind of comic relief villain.
The other villain I had in mind would be great as both an offensive and/or defensive foil for her. (Potentially even an arch-rival?) A lot of the suggestions I’d skimmed above were following in the same Physics theme as Collider, but were rather limiting themselves to Classical Mechanics. So, instead, I propose tapping into more of my specialty: electromagnetics . (Rob may be a Mechanical Engineering Major, but I’m an Electrical Engineer.) What a surprising number of people don’t know is that solidity, in this case referring to the inability for something to pass through a “solid” object, is due to the electromagnetic repulsion between atoms. Even a solid has so much empty space that other matter could pass through with no problem were it not for that repulsion, like how Neutrinos pass through the Earth unimpeded. What if a villain could change their electromagnetic field so as to become temporarily intangible? (Though that’s a little OP, so feel free to scratch that last sentence and only use what’s coming.) There’s also a quantum mechanical property known as diamagnetism, whereby a strong enough magnetic field induces an opposite magnetic field in any material, even one that is typically considered nonmagnetic. So if this villain could induce strong magnetic fields, they could block or attack Collider without ever touching her… thus rendering her momentum-manipulation powers completely ineffective. You could call this villain “Magnetar,” after the variety of neutron star with magnetic fields powerful enough to rip other matter apart into atoms. If you wanted to separate her (while writing this down I’ve come to think of the villain as female) from other characters that have had magnetic powers that just throw metal around, you could have her magnetic fields decay exponentially the further out they’re projected, making them weak far away. She could even wear metal on her body that she could manipulate with her magnetic abilities, and by accelerating that metal she effectively gains super strength.
Super teams… I don’t have much. Maybe “The Protectors,” which besides being a kinda-sorta Bland Name Product of The Avengers, sound like they would be more proactive like the Spirit Guard. Or, as a nod to the Spirit Guard and the Guardians of the Galaxy, something like “Guardian Angels?” I mean, they are supposed to be guardian spirits… and the only other guardian or helpful spirits I know sound a tad too old world for an American comic.
Teammates… that’s hard. Any superhero team needs to have a speedster and a highly-skilled fighter with no powers, at the very least. To go with physics, and to avoid using any of the obvious superhero names that I know have been chosen, the obvious pick for a speedster would be “Velocity.” As for the non-powered fighter, that’s rather harder to keep with a physics theme, and the name would all depend on what type of character you wanted to emulate. I mean, there are options like Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Black Widow, Hawkeye, etc. I’m sorry, but I can’t think up a name for this one. 🙁
That just leaves possible story arcs. The most recent one involved being stuck in a villains VR world, right? So maybe the “Virtuality Arc,” or the “Virtualizer Arc.” I was about to write the “Quantum Break Arc,” but then I remembered that’s a licensed video game, so perhaps a better name would be the “Quantum Flux Arc” or the “Waveform Collapse Arc.” (Added benefit of being the name of Rob’s Aspect Realm’s character!)
Semi-related question… when will Robynne realize that she looks like Collider now? I mean, the few snippets we’ve gotten on what Collider looks like, back when Robert was checking out his comic and Robynne was creating Waveform, it sounds like Collider looks exactly like Robynne/Serenity! I mean, GalleyGirl may have failed to get Robynne to cosplay as Meokashi Sakura from Dance of Blossoms (I had to look that up), but I can see her maybe convincing Robynne to cosplay as Collider! After all, once she shows up in a cheerleader uniform, it’s not exactly like she’ll have a good excuse no to cosplay as her favorite superhero! (Added bonus, Stacy could make Robynne’s costume, allowing for more fun times with Robynne and Stacy.)
Your description of Collider reminded me of Pinball from a Whateley Academy (http://whateleyacademy.net) fanfiction written by Morpheus. No, I’m not one of the authors there, just a fan. Can’t think of any villains to fight or heroes to fight beside. I want to read up on Collider and the Mercynaries before I make any suggestions.
It kinda ties back to the whole “character’s favorite show” business, but hear me out!
I figure Noriko (fav character behind Viv) is one of those people who barely watches tv, but has one show that she is *crazy* invested in. I think said show would be MGP’s equivalent of Daredevil. The martial arts, behind-the-scenes manipulation, and the concept of an ancient “secret war” are all up Noriko’s alley. Not to mention, Charlie Cox :> (I may be projecting here). I couldn’t think of a decent name, though. I considered “Darkdevil”, but then I remembered there actually was a Darkdevil in Marvel’s MC2 continuity. It may be *too* bland, but let’s just call him “Street Demon”
Anyway, just as Daredevil is set to be in the Defenders, Street Demon is set to be part of a new show called “The Guardians”. Rumors are going around that Collider will be appearing in the next season of Street Demon. Collider may have also been a Guardian in the comics, so this could be a source of common interest for Noriko (show fan) & Rob (comic fan).
It’s funny that Flairina mentioned Accelerator, because Accelerator actually had a problem fighting another esper who could control dark matter. Since the properties of dark matter operate differently than typical matter (or something like that, I’m no physics buff), his vector control wasn’t effective against it. That could work for a Collider villain.
Accelerator managed to overcome the issue by analyzing the properties of the dark matter, allowing him to control it in the end. However, considering his ability is far more OP than control over momentum and he’s an effing mathematical genius, I don’t know if Collider would be able to completely overcome (and subsequently dismember) a villain with such abilities so easily. Any corny name based around darkness or the color black could work: “Ebony”, “Shadow”, “Pitch”, etc.
A villain with gravity based powers would be an interesting counter, too. It doesn’t cancel out Collider’s momentum abilities, but it would have an effect on how she uses them.
My ideal foil or opponent for Collier would Tangier.
Since Collider is very particle like, I thought Tangier should be wave like.
This gives her 2 of perhaps 3 super powers.
She can make her own body interact with the world insurance wave-like way. So, if she is impacted by a small Hugh speed object like a bullet, her body can shift out of phase and allow you the bullet to pass through her.
A larger object with more mass-energy would cause her center of mass to displace to another location, effectively telephoning her.
Also, she can simply flow through objects with lots of holes, like a chain link or picket fence. It would take a dense, solid wall to stop her.
Her other main power is to entangle the states of 2 identical objects, do that a change in one produces an equal and opposite change in the other. Turning one light switch on would turn the other off. Heating one block in water would fool its twin. This wouldn’t work for objects with more complex motions. So locking a combination safe lock, for instance, wouldn’t unlock its twin.
She starts out using these abilities for tricks or pranks, but drifts into more serious malfeasance.