Before I settled on Basil as the main character, I went through a lot of early drafts with various main characters, some of them radically different.
Here are some of them – they may or may not show up in some form in the future, but these incarnations, at least, are not going to be told:
Hemagoria
One day, Amanda Blake woke up in a back alley of New Lennston’s Shades – naked, alone and with no memory other than a mission – Find Basil. Her only companion a weird, lizard-like cat which she knew she made herself – though she could not, for the life of her, remember when or where.
Amanda was a gadgeteer of a very rare type – instead of having a specific field that she works in, she could create an extreme variety of equipment – but it all needed her blood to run. Her power mostly settled in three distinct fields, all connected to blood:
- Living beings, such as her lizard-cat, of animal-like or lesser intelligence and with various abilities, grown out of her own genetic material to be obedient, but requiring a regular dose of Amanda’s blood so as not to break down.
- Small-scale Equipment – power armor which requires a small infusion of blood to boot up, energy guns which regularly take some of her blood through spikes in the grip in order to continue functioning, grenades which took a one-time infusion of blood to be primed, a teleportation device that uses her blood as a marker to determine destination, etc.
- Medicine of various kinds, though the base of everything she concocted used her own blood as its base.
Amanda’s team consisted of:
- teenage delinquent Godou Takahama, also known as Osore, a Japanese immigrant capable of projecting fear as well as great feats of strength and toughness.
- Jack O’Connors, also knowns as the Snow King, a young man capable of creating localised flurries of snow, as well as manipulating said snow for offence and defence.
- Timothy Louis, aka the Ogre, a rather easygoing boy who could turn into a brutish rage monster at will – but at the cost of having to spend a proportionate amount of time in the form of a preteen girl.
Medes
Jake Blake, a young psychic capable of using both telekinesis and telepathy, has been looking forward to being a hero ever since he gained his powers upon a mysterious incident during which he and four other people gained powers, each going their own way.
Medes was capable of both gross and fine telekinesis, was a general telepath (though he usually could only affect one person with any amount of precision, as it required great concentration) and had a knack for picking up skills from other people through telepathy and training.
The other four people who gained powers with him were:
- Hecate, an insane witch obsessed with the “mission” given to her by her namesake goddess upon her manifestation – a sinister mission requiring, among other things, the deaths of the other four people who gained powers at the same time as she did.
- Tyche, a morose, dedicated young man blessed with unnatural luck and a gift for martial arts who joined the Stormwatch (later renamed the United Heroes, upon me finding out about Vertigo’s Stormwatch books)
- Polymnia, a gadgeteer focusing on all things musical and auditory in general, though having paid for it by losing her voice and any sense for keeping a rhythm or hitting a note, unable to produce music of her own anymore. Joined the Stormwatch.
- Eudocia, a preteen girl with an extremely powerful voice and more than a few screws loose. A wild card.
Animus
Casimir Blake woke up in the medical ward of the Stormwatch, with no memory whatsoever, having been found by the heroes of New Lennston alone, in torn clothes and with heavy, nearly lethal wounds. Nursed back to health, they gave him the only name they could think of – the one sewn into the cat plushy he’d been clenching in his hand when they found him.
Motivated to repay their kindness by supporting them with the strange power he wielded – and eager to find out where he came from, and what had happened to him – he took up the mantle of Animus and joined the fight.
Animus power allowed him to animate any sufficiently life-like object – be it a plushie, an action figure, a statue or – if desperate – even a corpse. Anything that represented a living being without being one was fair game for his power.
He joined a team of junior Watchmen consisting of himself and:
- Dike & Tyche, twin sisters with strangely interconnected powers – one could “pay back what is owed”, healing allies proportional to the support they gave her and harm opponents proportional to the harm they caused her; the other had the ability to “break proportion” (a simple tap would shatter bones, a crushing blow would only tickle, a light misstep caused one to lose balance entirely, etc). When they combined their powers, they could strike enemies with blows of disproportionate power.
- Polymnia, pretty much the same as the canon version.
- Noctis Lumen, the son of Lady Light and The Dark, a power mimic who could copy the power of any metahuman he had previously touched, provided that metahuman was not currently within a certain range of him.
- Timothy Louis, the Ogre. Same as Hemagoria’s version.
Wanderer
Amanda Blake was a young woman fresh out of high school. With the whole world in front of her, she decided to make a journey and see the world. Unfortunately, her plane crashed during a flight over the pacific, trapping her as the only survivor on the shattered hulk of a vehicle, with little hope of being found before it broke apart and sank. She manifested gadgeteering abilities, creating a device that allowed her to flee the plane and return home.
Amanda was a gadgeteer specialising in cross-dimensional technology, creating various devices that could move energy and/or matter across parallel dimensions.
She became a vigilante and gathered a small group of other young gadgeteers around her:
- Hecate (Vasiliki); a gadgeteer specialising in creating illusions of various kinds, though mostly audio-visual ones.
- The Ogre (Timothy Louis); a gadgeteer who created a single, rather brutish android he was constantly working on.
- Tyche (Dalia Fitzhampton); a gadgeteer, capable of building basic combat equipment (power armor, some weaponry, etc) and technology which calculated, predicted and exploited probabilities (e.g. a targeting system that calculated the bost moment to pull a trigger in order to bounce a bullet around two corners and into the target).
There were many more, but these were among the most fleshed-out ones.
Tieshaunn 
Please, please tell me that Hemagoria’s version of Timothy Louis’ powers will be canon.
I gotta admit, that’s by far the most fun of the powers, though Animus is a good second choice.
I think the real question is how many things Animus can animate, because, right now, all I can think of is a beanie-baby army.
I mean not only is it a viable strategy, the sheer indignity of losing to him would make any villain flee to avoid defeat.
Ah, ah, Cap’n. Fleeing counts as a defeat most of the time. Instead, the villains would “Focus their efforts on bigger threats” or “Let the heroes off easily”.
Wait does Tyche rhyme with Dike? I’ve been reading it with more of a sh than a k…
it’s pronounced Ti-hi in greek (using hte letter x, which is kind of a hard h sound), and the other one Di-ki
Interesting, you went through so many prototypes, what made you decide on the current one?
The ones I could anticipate showing up in a future time are Wanderer and Animus, although Animus would probably have another surname….probably Blackhill, you seem to really like that one, wait, that’s the Godking of Mars, never mind
hard to say. I did a lot of the mental equivalent of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck.
Some of the reasons:
– I didn’t think I was good enough to write a female main character on my first try
– I didn’t want a team made up entirely of Gadgeteers (though, in retrospect, maybe Tyche the gadgeteer would’ve been cooler)
– I wanted a gadgeteering main character
– There was NO WAY I could resist utterly breaking the story with Wanderer’s ability. That’s some epic level stuff right there
– Hemagoria’s power wasn’t straightforward enough, for me. Generally, when it comes to main characters, I firmly believe that it’s better to stick with a simpler design and powerset, and work from there, than start off with something complex.
lots of other reasons, too. Mostly, tough, it was the desire to have a tech-based main char
A couple thoughts on those points:
1) One of my writing projects (only made a couple chapters before I got permanently sidetracked) used a female lead explicitly because of my immature writing. I’d noticed that male lead characters I made started getting Gary Stu-ish, so it was an attempt to avoid that. Casting an old Gary Stu as the big bad who was supposed to lose served a similar purpose.
2) I can really understand the desire for a straightforward power, now that I’ve tried otherwise. That same project caused me to get way too bogged down in, “but what if x character did y? Then z would happen, which means…”
3) Hemagoria’s power, as described, sounds more like contriving than gadgeteering. A pet peeve of mine in fiction is supposed “real science” being nonsensical. It’s bad enough that for a while I avoided any stories with a Hero Scientist lead.
I actually think that the first time I found Brennus I killed the window after reading the line, “master of all things technical”. Seeing the distinction between gadgeteering and contriving is one of the things that made me stay when I eventually gave this another chance (due to having forgotten that I’d been here before).
You’re in good company on needing a second chance, Tieshaunn. First time I found Worm I read the first chapter, and thought, “Ugh. The cliche bullied kid gets powers and decides to only use them for Justice plot. Boooring!” I don’t know how long it took before I gave Worm another chance, but I’d forgotten about having looked at it before.
about 3). I actually have an issue with that idea. not with you, but this is an issue I see come up a *lot* in regards to fiction.
What is “real science”?
I tell you what. It’s superfluous. “Science”, by definition, covers everything that is real.
To quote wikipedia, science is “a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe”. Now, what does this mean in regards to a superhero setting?
Let me go at it from a different direction. What is “supernatural”? It’s a contradictory term. Nature encompasses everything that is. it encompasses “everything that is a part of the physical, material universe”.
those are two very broad definitions. If you wanna some them up, you could use this: “Science is the study of everything that is a part of Nature, meaning everything that exists”.
What does this mean for our fantasy worlds?
It means that *everything* that is a part of that world is real. After all, if superpowers or magic or psionics weren’t REAL, then they wouldn’t affect the plot in any way, now would they?
In the Brennusverse, there are *natural* (that is, part of the universe that the plot takes place in) entities (the tenants) which are capable of, say, teleporting people.
that means teleportation is a part of nature, IN THE BRENNUSVERSE.
that means it is within the reach of science.
thus, a gadgeteer can do it (theoretically).
thus, an actual scientist could do it – given a few centuries to study how it works and come up with all the right inventions.
EVERYTHING that is possible in the setting is a part of SCIENCE. of course, teleporting people or turning them into newts or manipulating probabilities is NOT a part of “our” science since, as far as we know, such feats are not possible in our universe.
But they are possible in the Brennusverse. And in the DC verse. Or marvelverse. etc.
This is actually one reason why I can rarely enjoy magic vs science stories, or worse, nature vs science, since science, by definition, would cover nature and magic – or rather, magic would be a part of nature – anyway.
Now, does this mean I agree with how the subject is HANDLED in comics and most mainstream stories? Hell no. In DC and Marvel especially, “science” is just another word for “plot fiat”. I do think that there have to be rules and it has to be predictable – that is, fater all, part of the definition.
Thus why I make an effort to subject my gadgeteers – more than any other kind of metahuman in my story – to clear, predictable rules, so they don’t just become “anything-the-plot-needs-doers”.
That doesn’t mean there’s no chance of, say, a gadgeteer with a portal gun showing up đŸ˜›
He/she will just have to deal with the same restrictions as any other gadgeteer (needs proper materials, time, tools, etc), most of which contrivers don’t have to worry with (three contrivers can use wildly different materials and techniques to create something with hugely disproportionate effects in relation to the material and effort going into their creations).
also, I really need to edit that “master of all things technical” line. it’s way too overblown and hammy
its funny but both Breamus and Legion of Nothing are stories i refused to read for a long thme. because i always thought that super genuses and inventers were the most plot drivem powers out there. and now both are io my top ten favorite web serials. ynu being in my top 3 because of how well u handled putting limits on how a inventors powers work. also bloody Amy reminded me of Kill ta Killand thats awesome.
I completely understand what you mean about science being the organized study of what exists. That’s why I was glad to see Basil experiment with combining his gadgets with Vasilliki’s work. A large part of why I recommended Dungeon Keeper Ami a while ago is due to it blending established rules of magic with an engineering mindset. None of that “Magic vs. science” claptrap.
It’s just that I’ve seen too many “scientist” characters whose devices work exactly once to solve the plot, once other options have been exhausted. And the implications behind, say, a portal gun never get addressed. When I read anything with a hero scientist, the author has to prove that they aren’t like the mainstream ones that do it so badly. The “master of all things technical” made me think that the hero’s power was going to be mental control of any “high-tech” item, including Hollywood Hacking abilities.
That being said, I suppose if you really worked at, you could justify Hemagoria’s creations as non-contrivances. It’s just that it would take a lot of explanation, and I’m guessing that’s part of why her concept didn’t go forward.
I. Want. OGRE!! damn that would be awesome! i have to say other than Amanda, Ogre is your most reacuring charecter and definitely your most consistant. so i cant see you just dropping the concept. unlfss you tweaked it and gave it to Prisca? also what made you pick America?
Prisca’s power was born out of a joke made during a session with one of my p&p groups; she has no connection to these ones.
I mostly picked America because it’s the “medium” part of my setting. Basically, if this was a video game (perhaps an MMO), then there’d be different difficulty levels attached to the various continents.
Canada: Very Easy
USA: Medium
Europe: Hard
Africa: Hard
Asia: Very Hard
South America: Insane
Australia: DIEDIEDIE
huh, if it’s the medium setting and the main characters such as the unnamed team headed by B6 which really needs to get a name, or Gloomy and Polymnya, are barely starting to come into their own, there will come a time when they will run out of challenges there.
Am I correct in assuming that they will eventually broaden their horizons and go to a higher difficulty continent, like Europe, which is the next logical choice and you probably know the lay of the land there better than the USA’s?
Ogre could be amusing. I don’t really have any objection… But it’s a little close to Whately, and I burned out on that. Not sure if you’ve read any of those, cannonfodder. If not, I’ll just say that some authors are better than others, and the range is noticible.
one of the things that always greatly annoyed me about whateley (apart from the way magic and the old ones became one huge plot tumor) was how they treated their devisors the same way as their gadgeteers, as if they were actual scientists, even though their creations explicitely could *not* work on their own
never read any Whateley, cause i really don’t like the whole same story different interpretation thing. probably why i have only ever read one fanfic before the Hellboy series of novels did that and i really started to dislike it cause nothing really happened it was just the same basic formula over and over again. was i wrong about Whateley?
don’t read whateley. it has some good, it has some bad, and then it goes ALL bad. the original authors have pretty much abandoned it, the plot has been entirely taken over by the whole “lovecraftian demons” story, only characters with magic (which, in that setting, means bullshit power) or with some kind of ancient spirit in them still matter and all the original, sympathetic main chars have been entirely phased out
You have it spot on for the first bit written. After that, I think even the authors got tired of re-hashing the same material. It turns into multiple authors writing their own characters, with only occasional overlap.
That said, more characters were introduced later. And for almost all of them, first you have to get past the formulaic “and then I became a girl” wish-fulfillment fantasies. Once that part is done, the rest of the story might be good, depending heavily on the author.
For example, the author who did the descendent of a Great Old One, I find un-readable. The author of the Hollywood Hacker character is even worse, IMO. That’s around the point where I burned out. I’m not sure how far the ‘mythos tumor’ metastasized through the rest of the setting, but I’ll take Tieshaunn’s word.
it got bad. BAD. I mean, NONE of the characters still matter, unless they are directly tied into the mythos.
so even characters who used to be fine on their own now got a connection to the mythos, just to still be relevant. remember Loophole? most powerful gadgeteer on the planet? built a suit of power armor that would make tony stark green with envy just for fun?
she’s now the reincarnation of some kind of pict warrior lady AND has some kind of spirit ties AND her boyfriend is basically a reincarnated fey general, which is the only reason she’s in any way relevant to the plot (which isn’t out of date at all – a girl who’s only important due to her boyfriend).
In fact, she’s still together with that guy even though she’s actually a lesbian, was brainwashed by the spirit living in him (without his knowledge) into being into guys, broke out of it, KNOWS what happened and yet she still goes back to him, cause you know, sex is amazing.
I might have some issues with Loopholes storyline.
except for there being both high tech and magic to use
Ah, Whately. It was so good at first. AT FIRST. It feels like a bunch of horny and sexually confused teenagers got a hold of it at some point, and now it is just a mess of Lovecraft insanity and sexual insanity. The story has no real direction anymore. Just lots and lots of ADHD style rabbit trails. Also, everything Tieshaunn said. I personally feel like the story is an insult to actual lgbt people. The story was originally supposed to theoretically be something that they could kind of relate to, but I don’t really think there are any relatable charachters left. This is just my personal opinion. . . Now I feel bad for bashing the story. *shrugs* whatever.
What gets me about modern Whateley is just how stupidly inappropriate people’s reactions to Loophole are. She has mental issues, authority issues, and a doubtful grasp of action/reaction as it applies to her. Frankly, she needs a spanking, not least because G-6 is one of the scariest powers out there.
Everyone acts as if she is such a special princess. They’re making her student adviser? Just broke my suspension of disbelief, and qualifies her for Author’s Pet, approaching Sue. And I don’t throw that last one out lightly
I want Bek or Diane back. The lunatics are running the asylum.
Ah, Whateley, I have been burning out there as well, there are still some small beacons of hope, mainly The Imp, that there will still be stories unrelated to the mythos, hell, maybe Diane will return one day and spearhead the Kimbas back into the main plot, maybe we will see Sara or Chou being relevant again.
The chances are slim, but I will carry on, I stayed with Naruto to the end, I owe at least that much to Whateley……….but yeah, we need Diane back, and some of the others, but mainly her
If I never have to read a Chou story again, I’ll be a happy man. I dislike the Tao even more than the Mythos in Whateley.
The Mythos elements at least make sense, annoying though they are
Seconded about the Tao. Such a big deal is made of “balance” and that it is “neither good nor evil”, yet as far as I got, the only thing it was a balance of is immediate good, versus later good after facing a moral dilemma. Plus the whole, “omniscient except where plot demands” thing the Tao has going on.
I would like to read more of Diane, though. And Bek.
I agree. Ayla’s and Jadis’ stories are by far my favourites.
I didn’t mind Chou that much. Her power is a joke, and bears little resemblance to the religious concept it’s named after, but the stories are decently written, she isn’t a cardboard standup, and the reaction of the world around her is mostly believable. Kinda wangsty, I admit.
Sara and Hollywood Hacker fail several more of those tests. Whisper is a mess. Loophole needs to disappear.
Tennyo is poorly written, but passes the story tests. Jade is great, Jadis and Ayla are pretty good.
I concur with the whole thing about the Tao, but I liked Chou as a character, and I absolutely adore Ayla and Jadis too, I liked the Fey stories too, though it got a bit old at times, but seeing her viewpoints on things was nice. Chaka was fun to read though she got worse once she started dating that guy whose name I can’t be bothered to remember. Sara I liked better when she was still a Kimba, but I still enjoy her appearances when the Mythos is not involved.
Tennyo was always a bit too…….RPish for my taste, and as a character I found her to be a bit boring, but her stories were fun.
Lancer was there to just kind of….fill an empty slot, but he did his job at that, and I liked it when he got strategical. Jade, she was crazy fun, and I miss her hijinks.
Ayla always crowned the Kimbas by being the most intelligent, sophisticated member of the group by a wide margin, having deeper issues than the rest and coming to term with them, having an actual power progression as she gets more gadgets and learns how to use her power better which allows her to FEEL like she is realistically growing stronger, becoming formidable, but above all, the way she negotiated with people and helped them reach higher grounds while getting benefits herself was always a treat.
As for people outside the Kimbas, I always liked Jadis for being generally more intelligent than the rest of the cast, being diplomatic and manipulating situations to her advantage, and seeing how loyal the Bad Seeds were to each other was heartwarming, needless to say, the chapters when Jadis and Ayla interacted were always amongst my favorites.
I also liked Hive for being a more down to earth kind of person, a reliable authority figure, and a good fighter without the need for game breaking superpowers, actually, I liked the Whateley staff in general, with Ito, Delarose and Carson being other highlights.
The Imp I also liked, being a cat burglar and a highly accomplished artist, with a soft spot for children and being quite snarky and sassy.
I could go on and move on to the characters I have a generally negative opinion of but that would take forever.
Huh. That’s an interesting read. There’s definitely a bunch of common threads between these and Brennus. I’m glad we ended up with the current version of the story, but damn if Medes doesn’t sound interesting. Animus is probably second, nice setup and a pretty cool power (I like the twins too). The Amanda one’s are pretty interesting too, although a large part of that is me being curious about how things could have gone, what Basil would have been like etc.
Any chance we could get a peak at some of the “flesh” of these stories? (maybe later on, in case there’s anything in them that might be spoiler-ish). I’d be really curious in seeing them. Might make a nice File.
I’m not going to publish the original snippets anytime soon. Partly because some of them have REALLY low quality or I’d have to edit them heavily to remove spoilers – which would defeat the purpose of publishing them in the first place.
I might write some short stories based on these characters in the future.
Is it just me or does Wanderer’s specialty sound a lot like what Su Lin could do?
It’s completely off-topic, but the conversation between Ties and I reminded me of a roleplay setting idea I had. The idea was spawned when I stumbled across some televanglist-type being mocked for claiming that he’d fought the Esoteric Order of Dagon, and that it was a Satanic church. I’ll throw it out here in case it inspires anyone else.
The setting is an urban fantasy, with a shadow war going on. Normal people aren’t completely oblivious, but they’re close. There are four factions:
The Messians: Basically an ersatz Christianity. They have a lot of manpower, and have casters that don’t have to pay the usual mental costs for magic. They intentend to bring peace on earth… At a pre-industrial tech level, with no magic except for what is granted to the blessed priests.
The Satanists: They have really good biomedical technology. Their god intends to reshape humanity into his image, and has long been an aid to tech development. The reason for this is that he intends for his worshippers to do a lot of the work through genetic tinkering, once humanity has the tech to do so.
The Cultists: Not really a unified faction. Each cult worships a specific alien god, whose priorities are different enough from ours that they might seem crazy. They tend to be the first ones to have new magics, though.
The Militant Atheists: They intend to stomp out religion… In a world where gods actually exist. If possible, they’d like to kill the gods as well, which is why they’ve tied themselves into weapons development.
I’ve never played Shadowrun, but the setting would probably turn out similar to how I’ve heard it is, especially since I intended the players to be freelancers. I’ve also never played The Secret World, so I’m not sure how similar it is to this.
pretty much nothing at all like either, from what I can tell
Well, shows what I know about those settings.
One of the things I specifically wanted to avoid was Lovecraftian cliche form of madness. Thus my description of the alien gods not as crazy, just fundementally different. All that being said, the “rewards” the cultists can expect to earn range from being eaten from within by parasites, to being permanently shapeshifted into something that can’t survive on Earth. So there’s definitely something wrong with anyone that would sign up for that. But then, I’ve got to wonder why anyone would sign up to be a mook in a cape story, too.
soo im bored, and sense we beat up Whateley a bit. and cause i like to see myself talk. i thought i might rant and praise about two mainstream superhero stories. 1. Kevin Rau’s. H.E.R.O. series. 3 outa 10. gond action, good power diversity and explanation of how they work. even good plots most of the time. and it is all ruined cause every single human being is dumb as shit. all the women are porn sterotypes that pretty much alter from talking about breast firmness and who among the heroines might be a lesbian. and the men are slightly smarter they are at least usually able to focus on their job, when they are not literally shrugging off the fact they ocarionally kill people, some of them innocent people. exanple of intelligence levels? the smartest female char is able to create permanent life forms within limitations. she needed a creature to fight fire, so she made a small ice dragon COVERED IN FLAMABLE FUZZY FUR! Guess what happened! thats right! it caugit on fire and nearly died! and all because furry things are FUCKING CUTER! sigh, so much wasted potential. 2. Marion Harmon’s Wearing the Cape series. 8 outta 10. seriously one of the best most imagnative stories i have ever read. just about everything is.absolutely perfect except for a couple things to do with the main char. she is really weird about all tihings romance, made up by the fact that its not that big of a plot point in any of the five books. she is really really catholic, i got a headache from all my eye rolling. so probably not for hardcore Atheirts. and also. finally i thimk her ultamate dream is to be a 1950’s socialite housewife? oot sure why that last one bothers me, seose im a dude, but it does. overall though she kicks all the asses!!!
Hey, if we’re throwing suggestions around, try Price! Link here: https://pricestory.wordpress.com/
It’s another superhero web serial, just starting out, and it’s one of the good ones! Probably in the top three, IMO (I’ll let you guess the other two). The writing is top notch, it comes out really regularly (new chapter every 2-3 days) the characters are well done, and I really enjoy the setting.
The two big twists to the setting, as I see them, is that the idea of “power at a price” is laid out as an explicit foundation of the power system, creating some fun conflicts, and all the old “heroic tales” (think King Arthur, Beowulf etc.) exist as a part of the history (although it’s not really brought up in-story – just something fun as the story mirrors the rhythms of that genre). The two work together surprisingly well. But yeah, the setting is as well thought out, clever etc. as the rest of it.
Go check it out, if you’re looking for another web serial to while away the time waiting for Brennus.
And suddenly I’ve been introduced to a new story. That I will read. When I find some god damn time.
I really enjoy the Wearing the Cape series, though the last two books haven’t been as good as the previous ones, in my opinion, as it feels like the author got sidetracked – especially with Small Town Heroes. I know I’m not exactly on the high horse there, seeing how I got sidetracked with Aap, but god damn, he introduced an entire new team for Hope to lead in the previous book, then sidelined them for the entire following book, until the final fight!
(SPOILER WARNING) yeah totally agree. in Ronin Games she takes off again, though she does take at least one of her new teammates, which leads me to a couple complaints i forgot to add. 1. for a supposed leader, she does very little actual leading, and due to future info she was given most of her hand picked tean are future major villains she thought sie could save. how do you do that when your never around Hope? 2. self sacrefice, soumds noble and heroic and everything. except she tries to do it a lot, and im starting to think she is trying to get out of being a hero (which she kinda hates) and get a free ride to heaven in one go. especially sense the sacrefice isnt ever even needed. and again how do you save and/or lead your team when your dead Hope?
to me, Hope seems like a terribly disturbed young woman who has NOT dealt well with the things she went through even before getting superpowers.
Though I can’t tell whether the author is deliberately writing her as a disturbed character or not.
To be fair, I think most of us liked Aap. There might have been a little whining about wanting to know what’s going on with B6, but that was mostly impatience.
Part of the thing to Aap is that he’s older than team BGHT, and it shows. For those of us close to thirty, he’s probably more identifiable than Basil.
I’m 21, but I get what you mean, Aap is well, more down to earth, while Basil is still maturing…..though admitedly, he has shown himself mor mature than me in some areas of importance, by a wide margin
Aap is good, Aap is great, Aap is king! there is only two times i got impatient with the storyline. 1. trying to get through the stuff between Monkey Business and Monkey Family. 2. Vra, im a twin who is close to his brother so i get what Terry was going through, but damn that was rough trying to get through and it only got more and more depressing. it felt like a completely difefrent story. lol i even kept checking to make sure Tieshaun war the one actually posting it.
Glad to know I’m not the only writer (well, wannabe writer) who constantly scraps and then drastically redesigns his plots and characters. It’s slightly comforting really.