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Cape&Cowl Application
Oct. 30th, 2011 03:35 am[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Ky
AGE: 24
JOURNAL: I don't really use it.
IM: Plurk/AIM/Skype: SwirlingFlight
Plurk is the most reliable way to reach me.
E-MAIL: rp at swirlingflight dot com
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Hal Stewart,
FANDOM: Megamind
CHRONOLOGY: Hal is taken from the churro salute, the afternoon before he reveals his Titan identity to the city.
CLASS: Villain, but not a supervillain.
SUPERHERO NAME:Tighten Titan
ALTER EGO: Hal Stewart: cameraman who hangs out playing videogames a lot.
BACKGROUND:
It's important to note that the Megamind universe is an archetypal, old time superhero world. The only reference to anywhere on Earth outside of Metro City is the advertisement on the van of "Channel 8 news" as "America's news source;" it is an oddly self-contained place. People feel safely protected by the local super hero---even with a recurring supervillain causing chaos. There is, after all, far more property damage than harm to the people of the city. Perhaps most important of all there are rules of engagement between the heroic and villainous forces. Everything has a predictable, story quality to it.
When the superhero snags babies from an audience to juggle them? The entire crowd cheers and laughs, even the parents. They trust in him that deeply. People are surprised by some of Megamind's ploys, but confident that the hero Metro Man will always triumph. Until one day, he doesn't. And thanks to the campy quality of their world, the villain defeating the hero means that he wins. There is no national guard, no outside reserve, no vigilante justice. The city is that cowed by their previous trust in Metro Man, or that indifferent to the situation.
Where the other major characters see themselves within the dynamic of the hero/villain conflict, Hal Stewart is concerned only with his own story. To his mind the superhero is incompetent, the villain even worse, and Roxanne---the girl he feels destined to be with---barely pays attention to him. He knows that if he were the hero, the villain would be defeatedand probably dead, the girl safe from kidnappings and always happy to have him around.
But for the beginning of the film, he was just the reporter's sidekick, cameraman, and joke. His repeated advances toward romance were rebuffed and avoided. Given that they don't spend time together outside of work, they weren't even friends.
The unexpected death of Metro Man left the majority of the city dumbfounded and in various levels of shock, hiding as Megamind went to the City Hall to announce his triumph. Cops laid down their arms on command, the major stood by mutely as the villain passed, and the various news groups gathered to take his statement. Hal comfortably stood behind his camera, smiling and chewing gum, while Roxanne Ritchie was the only one to speak against the villain's ascension.
In the city under Megamind, life went on---badly. The banks were closed, various cars thrown around as toys, museums robbed and buildings vandalized. Trash disposal services stopped functioning, and the city became a dark, dreary, dirty place. Compared to the light and bustle of during Metro Man's time, it seems almost deserted.
And as life went on, Hal continued to make jokes, flirt, and get shot down. He now more clearly expressed his disappointment and frustration, punching the station's van and driving it recklessly.
When Roxanne suddenly starts getting excited again, going out and investigating, he follows with her like it's the old days. When she disappears into Megamind's secret lab, he complains to himself like this has occurred before... and very lazily searches for her by wandering around the building, calling her name. Little to his knowledge, within the lab Roxanne and Megamind wrestle for control of a gun that contains a sample of Metro Man's DNA, rearranged in such a way to give that alien's powers to a human being. When a strange bolt comes flying out one of the pipes, hitting Hal's nose, he thinks it was simply that a bee stung him.
Only, later that day a glowing alien appears in his apartment introducing himself as Hal's "Space Dad," and Hal finds himself developing superpowers. This figure, really Megamind in disguise, tells Hal an encouraging tale about his heroic destiny and gifts.
During this exchange, "Space Dad" takes a Metro Man magazine, rips off the top, and shows it to Hal with Hal's face juxtaposed over the top. Rather than focusing on the heroic image, Hal glances at the image of Roxanne in Metro Man's arms, being rescued and grateful. Thanks to the popular theory that Roxanne and Metro Man had been together, he believes that replacing Metro Man's role will finally gain her interest and attention--that he now has a possibility of winning the girl. And with that as his motivation, he works at training his powers.
The comic relief sidekick suddenly becomes the protagonist of his own tale, with a mentor and training montage over several weeks or possibly months. It's filled with an exciting variety of unintentional destruction and violent solutions to problems, and at least one homage to Donkey Kong in hopes of getting him to finally understand what he's doing.
The training is a slow process, full of points where he misses the point of the lessons, takes the easy and destructive path, and only grudgingly follows the forms his mentor instructs him to use.
Pre-canon conjecture and headcanon:
Hal Stewart had not achieved anything of note. His role at this point is that of comic relief and news sidekick, and he works as a cameraman for the local news. The pay is nothing special, and he lives in a cramped, messy apartment, surrounded by empty take-out containers and a few videogames.
It seems likely that Hal has always been a socially awkward dork. A moment in his training montage shows him floating in the air, giving himself a wedgie, and cheerfully remarking on the painlessness of it. Likely he was bullied and given wedgies in school. He won no awards, he led no clubs, he had no superlatives written in a year book. He may have beat records in games in arcades, but they weren't listed anywhere that could be easily associated with him. There are no pictures of him spending time with friends, no computer to suggest that maybe his friends are interacted with online, and overall no hint that he has a significant social life outside interacting with his coworker and crush Roxanne.
Given his ease in accepting the presence of "space" parents, Hal probably isn't very close to any of the family involved in raising him. He considers fidelity very important and has only heard that romance is inspiring, suggesting a tense relationship between his guardians growing up.
PERSONALITY:
Hal is the disinterested sidekick who just wants the girl and glory. His main accomplishments in life have been unimpressive and nothing that others take note of. He works a low-wage job as a cameraman, creating furniture with cinder blocks and planks of wood. Much of his leisure time is spent on old-style, single player videogames in his room. The apartment is filled with empty take-out boxes, including at least three separate stacks of pizza boxes. He's lazy, inclined to the pleasures of the moment, and apparently content with that part of his life.
He's insecure enough never to be truly honest with the girl he likes, certain that she wouldn't be interested in him. Instead he exaggerates and fabricates stories to impress her, pretends to be happier or more excited than he is, and just erratically presents a front to her. His moments of honesty tend to be awkwardly direct declarations of obsession, and he never notices her discomfort with the remarks.
While he'd like to believe he's the sort to launch a rescue mission and fight off ninjas, he isn't. Hal is the sort to follow the girl he likes, linger in worry outside the building instead of going in to rescue her, and then fabricate explanations for his injuries in order to brag about them. When his apartment is broken into, he encourages the apparent burglars to go across the hall to his adult female neighbor instead. When Roxanne is in danger he didn't mean to put her in, his first impulse is to shriek for help. Hal is more of a coward than the average person considers themselves to be: he only fights when he's sure he can win.
For the most part he existed as the geeky comic effect and an unsettling yet "safe" presence in Roxanne's life. And then, a fairly short time before this application's canon point, he was hit with something that gave him superpowers. In training his new powers he gained more apparent confidence, and more willingness to reach for whatever he wants. His first plan is to look for Roxanne, trying to make sure she's okay, and that none of these other caped people have managed to woo her.
Only... he flirts very, very badly, between his come-ons being cliche bad jokes, and his target being uninterested. His remarks continually unnerve Roxanne, and Hal genuinely does not recognize what her body language and tone of voice are conveying.
While Hal is hopeful that things will work out with Roxanne, he's willing to grudgingly do the "hero" routine. But that is his primary motivation for doing so. If rejected or left to his own, unsupervised devices, he'll laze around using his powers for his own entertainment. He may take up stealing money and arcade machines as he would have in canon. If things go badly, he may even make plans to team up with the local supervillain. After all, being a hero is work. Being a villain is fun if you're good at it.
Unfortunately for that urge, being in a city filled with all kinds of superpowered people is a new and alarming concept. Hal will be grudgingly spending more time in his secret identity.
Future canon points show that, if faced with a superhero who he believes is stronger, he'll panic, apologize, and try to get out of it safely. If faced with a supervillain, he'll try to arrange some kind of alliance that makes him the awesome guy and the other the lame assistant. Either way, it will probably go badly for him.
POWERS:
Flight
Laser beams that shoot from his eyes
Being imbued with alien DNA
The DNA of the alien superhero Metro Man gave Hal the same capabilities as the superhero, though he never gains the same skill or familiarity with them. More specifically, Titan demonstrates powers of flight, alien super strength/vision/hearing/invulnerability compared to humans, and the ability to shoot laser beans from his eyes.
He never displays true super speed, and any rumor that he is weak against copper is unfortunately untrue. Titan's main weaknesses are his cowardice and self-centeredness.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE
:
[The video is first directed at a roof somewhere, and the top of someone's wavy red hair can be seen flickering at the edge of it. A petulant male voice is muttering as the feed moves, as he's still adjusting the settings.]
Okay this is ridonkulous, how does this stupid thing even work...? Oh!
[Cameramen are usually on the recording side of a camera, not in front of them, and it takes him a moment to recognize the lens and turn it to his face. A freckled, muscular man in a decorative, fire-themed one-piece outfit stares into it for a moment. His eyebrows shoot up when he emphasizes words, and an arm usually follows.]
So does this place normally kidnap people? And what's that thing doing, telling me it brought me here to be a hero? I'm supposed to be doing that back in Metro City right now!
[His eyes unfocus, and he smiles dreamily.]
There's a girl waiting for me.
Edit: New third person sample
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Hal: Be the 'Hero'
It turned out that being the hero was pretty lame. Having powers was awesome, having the chance to woo Roxanne as a hero was even more awesome, but being a hero was exactly as lame as all that training with Space Dad had hinted at.
The first problem was, he didn't know where Roxanne was yet. He couldn't hear her anywhere in the city. Second problem was that he didn't hear Megamind anywhere either! And honestly, the only supervillain he'd practiced beating was the blue twerp. These other super-powered people in the city might be a harder to deal with, and he didn't feel like just jumping into a fight like that.
So, now seemed like a time to fly around, eavesdropping on what people were watching in their apartments, and seeing if anything easier popped up. After all, if comics had shown Titan anything, it was that a superhero was supposed to fly around the city and just find guys in ski masks, crouching in alleyways or banks or whatever, pulling off a heist or a mugging. No threat, easy to show off and brag about.
It was not to be. Instead, some frail, little old lady had waved at him, wailing about her cat with some incredibly lame name. It was easy to go up to the balcony the furball had climbed out on, grab it and toss it down at her. That was the sort of thing that got Roxanne to coo about how wonderful Metroman was all the time, right? So he'd rescue some stupid cats and make a reputation for himself like Space Dad kept on at him about. Maybe he'd even practice clever remarks.
...Heh, yeah right. Like he'd waste his time on something as stupid as that.
But right now, the little old lady wasn't cooing at him or anything! Instead, she was glaring at him like he'd done something wrong. Okay, maybe it was a little bit his fault that her groceries were now spilling across the sidewalk, that the one orange had just been run over. And apparently cats didn't know not to pee on their owners when they were rescued, so that damp spot on her sweater might have been a little bit his fault too. Diapers were probably why it was safe with babies. So next time he rescued a cat he'd make sure to hand it over gently.
"Okay, so there's your cat, alive and well!" Titan reassured her, descending next to her. The cat fluffed and dug its claws into the old lady to help reassure her it wasn't going anywhere, and he smiled benevolently, awaiting the praise that would naturally follow.
"If you hurt my Fluffikins, I'll call the police on you! Just see if I won't!" She exclaimed, clutching at it and scowling.
"Huh?" Titan pulled away a little from her. Her increasingly livid expression made absolutely no sense, and he tried to explain that to her. "What are you talking about, I rescued your cat. I didn't hurt it."
She just continued to lecture at him, and after a minute a few of the passersby started to join in. Some complained about all the problems super-powered people made, some told him not to frighten an old lady, and a bunch just glared.
"Ugh, are you freaking kidding me?" This was clearly not worth it, and he took to the air to quickly get out of that scene. He didn't notice the effects from the sudden change in air pressure behind him: people fell over, the rest of the groceries dispersed even further, and the cat was torn from the old lady's shoulders again.
Instead, Titan moved speedily through the air, preoccupied with his own problems. Back in Metro City, the wonderful Metro Man did stuff like this all the time, and people practically fell over to cheer him. As far as he could tell, he had the same powers and a cooler outfit. So why did the old lady get annoyed? This was supposed to be easy. Use his powers, show off being a hero by stopping Megamind, and get the girl. But Megamind didn't seem to be here, and that voice that had sounded like Roxanne wasn't saying anything anymore, so he couldn't follow it either. With no sign of Roxanne, Space Dad or Space Step-Mom, and no rewards for doing the 'right thing'? There was no reason to bother with this.
At least there was an upside now; he recognized the movie playing in an apartment a few buildings down. It was a pretty awesome movie, and Titan hovered outside the window, lounging back in an imaginary lazy-boy to watch it with the random people in there.
Previous version of the third person sample:
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Hal let the moment linger into silence. Space Dad had just given him the weird, heroic name "Tighten" and an outfit with cape to go with it. Perhaps most importantly, Space Dad had encouraged him to seek romance with the beautiful Roxanne. Talking about how amazing love was one thing, but his mentor had actually given advice on how to win her over.
Okay, so Space Dad told him to rescue her. Hal didn't want to have to rescue her from Megamind, though. Unlike that idiot Metro Man, he was strong and he was supposed to win. So screw waiting for the next day; he was going to go to her tonight.
"Who wants churros?" Space Step-Mom asked from behind, interrupting his thoughts.
Space Dad and Hal both responded positively, reaching over to receive their respective sticks from her. Hal extended her a polite and pleased thanks to her as she gave him one, and lifted it to better smell it.
At Space Dad's encouragement, unsheathing the churros suddenly became a group salute to the skyline of the city before them. "To Tighten!"
They stared out at the towers ahead as sunset light glimmering off them, and Space Dad made the announcement of the salute itself. "Tomorrow, you will fight Megamind. And the City will know your name."
Hal focused on what this meant for him: finally being the person that Roxanne would idolize as she always had Metro Man. Tomorrow he might fight Megamind, to prove that he was the hero she wanted... and tonight, he would go to finally see her in his heroic guise.
Only, suddenly, the sunset cities weren't in front of him, and the churro smelt horrible. Everything was spinning a little in a way it hadn't since he first gained his super powers, and everything was glowing a little.
"Welcome to the City, Hero" Some weird girl voice said, as a couple little metal objects tumbled out of a machine near him. It told him to pick up a brochure and just laughed.
No matter what he asked, it didn't answer any other questions---not even when he tried punching the wall. Something strange was going on. Space Dad didn't mention him having to fight Megamind in a different city than Metro City. Where was he? And where was Roxanne?!
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
Hal really needs to make some friends. Otherwise he'll continue to treat everything like a real life videogame.
NAME: Ky
AGE: 24
JOURNAL: I don't really use it.
IM: Plurk/AIM/Skype: SwirlingFlight
Plurk is the most reliable way to reach me.
E-MAIL: rp at swirlingflight dot com
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Hal Stewart,
FANDOM: Megamind
CHRONOLOGY: Hal is taken from the churro salute, the afternoon before he reveals his Titan identity to the city.
CLASS: Villain, but not a supervillain.
SUPERHERO NAME:
ALTER EGO: Hal Stewart: cameraman who hangs out playing videogames a lot.
BACKGROUND:
It's important to note that the Megamind universe is an archetypal, old time superhero world. The only reference to anywhere on Earth outside of Metro City is the advertisement on the van of "Channel 8 news" as "America's news source;" it is an oddly self-contained place. People feel safely protected by the local super hero---even with a recurring supervillain causing chaos. There is, after all, far more property damage than harm to the people of the city. Perhaps most important of all there are rules of engagement between the heroic and villainous forces. Everything has a predictable, story quality to it.
When the superhero snags babies from an audience to juggle them? The entire crowd cheers and laughs, even the parents. They trust in him that deeply. People are surprised by some of Megamind's ploys, but confident that the hero Metro Man will always triumph. Until one day, he doesn't. And thanks to the campy quality of their world, the villain defeating the hero means that he wins. There is no national guard, no outside reserve, no vigilante justice. The city is that cowed by their previous trust in Metro Man, or that indifferent to the situation.
Where the other major characters see themselves within the dynamic of the hero/villain conflict, Hal Stewart is concerned only with his own story. To his mind the superhero is incompetent, the villain even worse, and Roxanne---the girl he feels destined to be with---barely pays attention to him. He knows that if he were the hero, the villain would be defeated
But for the beginning of the film, he was just the reporter's sidekick, cameraman, and joke. His repeated advances toward romance were rebuffed and avoided. Given that they don't spend time together outside of work, they weren't even friends.
The unexpected death of Metro Man left the majority of the city dumbfounded and in various levels of shock, hiding as Megamind went to the City Hall to announce his triumph. Cops laid down their arms on command, the major stood by mutely as the villain passed, and the various news groups gathered to take his statement. Hal comfortably stood behind his camera, smiling and chewing gum, while Roxanne Ritchie was the only one to speak against the villain's ascension.
In the city under Megamind, life went on---badly. The banks were closed, various cars thrown around as toys, museums robbed and buildings vandalized. Trash disposal services stopped functioning, and the city became a dark, dreary, dirty place. Compared to the light and bustle of during Metro Man's time, it seems almost deserted.
And as life went on, Hal continued to make jokes, flirt, and get shot down. He now more clearly expressed his disappointment and frustration, punching the station's van and driving it recklessly.
When Roxanne suddenly starts getting excited again, going out and investigating, he follows with her like it's the old days. When she disappears into Megamind's secret lab, he complains to himself like this has occurred before... and very lazily searches for her by wandering around the building, calling her name. Little to his knowledge, within the lab Roxanne and Megamind wrestle for control of a gun that contains a sample of Metro Man's DNA, rearranged in such a way to give that alien's powers to a human being. When a strange bolt comes flying out one of the pipes, hitting Hal's nose, he thinks it was simply that a bee stung him.
Only, later that day a glowing alien appears in his apartment introducing himself as Hal's "Space Dad," and Hal finds himself developing superpowers. This figure, really Megamind in disguise, tells Hal an encouraging tale about his heroic destiny and gifts.
During this exchange, "Space Dad" takes a Metro Man magazine, rips off the top, and shows it to Hal with Hal's face juxtaposed over the top. Rather than focusing on the heroic image, Hal glances at the image of Roxanne in Metro Man's arms, being rescued and grateful. Thanks to the popular theory that Roxanne and Metro Man had been together, he believes that replacing Metro Man's role will finally gain her interest and attention--that he now has a possibility of winning the girl. And with that as his motivation, he works at training his powers.
The comic relief sidekick suddenly becomes the protagonist of his own tale, with a mentor and training montage over several weeks or possibly months. It's filled with an exciting variety of unintentional destruction and violent solutions to problems, and at least one homage to Donkey Kong in hopes of getting him to finally understand what he's doing.
The training is a slow process, full of points where he misses the point of the lessons, takes the easy and destructive path, and only grudgingly follows the forms his mentor instructs him to use.
Pre-canon conjecture and headcanon:
Hal Stewart had not achieved anything of note. His role at this point is that of comic relief and news sidekick, and he works as a cameraman for the local news. The pay is nothing special, and he lives in a cramped, messy apartment, surrounded by empty take-out containers and a few videogames.
It seems likely that Hal has always been a socially awkward dork. A moment in his training montage shows him floating in the air, giving himself a wedgie, and cheerfully remarking on the painlessness of it. Likely he was bullied and given wedgies in school. He won no awards, he led no clubs, he had no superlatives written in a year book. He may have beat records in games in arcades, but they weren't listed anywhere that could be easily associated with him. There are no pictures of him spending time with friends, no computer to suggest that maybe his friends are interacted with online, and overall no hint that he has a significant social life outside interacting with his coworker and crush Roxanne.
Given his ease in accepting the presence of "space" parents, Hal probably isn't very close to any of the family involved in raising him. He considers fidelity very important and has only heard that romance is inspiring, suggesting a tense relationship between his guardians growing up.
PERSONALITY:
Hal is the disinterested sidekick who just wants the girl and glory. His main accomplishments in life have been unimpressive and nothing that others take note of. He works a low-wage job as a cameraman, creating furniture with cinder blocks and planks of wood. Much of his leisure time is spent on old-style, single player videogames in his room. The apartment is filled with empty take-out boxes, including at least three separate stacks of pizza boxes. He's lazy, inclined to the pleasures of the moment, and apparently content with that part of his life.
He's insecure enough never to be truly honest with the girl he likes, certain that she wouldn't be interested in him. Instead he exaggerates and fabricates stories to impress her, pretends to be happier or more excited than he is, and just erratically presents a front to her. His moments of honesty tend to be awkwardly direct declarations of obsession, and he never notices her discomfort with the remarks.
While he'd like to believe he's the sort to launch a rescue mission and fight off ninjas, he isn't. Hal is the sort to follow the girl he likes, linger in worry outside the building instead of going in to rescue her, and then fabricate explanations for his injuries in order to brag about them. When his apartment is broken into, he encourages the apparent burglars to go across the hall to his adult female neighbor instead. When Roxanne is in danger he didn't mean to put her in, his first impulse is to shriek for help. Hal is more of a coward than the average person considers themselves to be: he only fights when he's sure he can win.
For the most part he existed as the geeky comic effect and an unsettling yet "safe" presence in Roxanne's life. And then, a fairly short time before this application's canon point, he was hit with something that gave him superpowers. In training his new powers he gained more apparent confidence, and more willingness to reach for whatever he wants. His first plan is to look for Roxanne, trying to make sure she's okay, and that none of these other caped people have managed to woo her.
Only... he flirts very, very badly, between his come-ons being cliche bad jokes, and his target being uninterested. His remarks continually unnerve Roxanne, and Hal genuinely does not recognize what her body language and tone of voice are conveying.
While Hal is hopeful that things will work out with Roxanne, he's willing to grudgingly do the "hero" routine. But that is his primary motivation for doing so. If rejected or left to his own, unsupervised devices, he'll laze around using his powers for his own entertainment. He may take up stealing money and arcade machines as he would have in canon. If things go badly, he may even make plans to team up with the local supervillain. After all, being a hero is work. Being a villain is fun if you're good at it.
Unfortunately for that urge, being in a city filled with all kinds of superpowered people is a new and alarming concept. Hal will be grudgingly spending more time in his secret identity.
Future canon points show that, if faced with a superhero who he believes is stronger, he'll panic, apologize, and try to get out of it safely. If faced with a supervillain, he'll try to arrange some kind of alliance that makes him the awesome guy and the other the lame assistant. Either way, it will probably go badly for him.
POWERS:
Flight
Laser beams that shoot from his eyes
Being imbued with alien DNA
The DNA of the alien superhero Metro Man gave Hal the same capabilities as the superhero, though he never gains the same skill or familiarity with them. More specifically, Titan demonstrates powers of flight, alien super strength/vision/hearing/invulnerability compared to humans, and the ability to shoot laser beans from his eyes.
He never displays true super speed, and any rumor that he is weak against copper is unfortunately untrue. Titan's main weaknesses are his cowardice and self-centeredness.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE
:
[The video is first directed at a roof somewhere, and the top of someone's wavy red hair can be seen flickering at the edge of it. A petulant male voice is muttering as the feed moves, as he's still adjusting the settings.]
Okay this is ridonkulous, how does this stupid thing even work...? Oh!
[Cameramen are usually on the recording side of a camera, not in front of them, and it takes him a moment to recognize the lens and turn it to his face. A freckled, muscular man in a decorative, fire-themed one-piece outfit stares into it for a moment. His eyebrows shoot up when he emphasizes words, and an arm usually follows.]
So does this place normally kidnap people? And what's that thing doing, telling me it brought me here to be a hero? I'm supposed to be doing that back in Metro City right now!
[His eyes unfocus, and he smiles dreamily.]
There's a girl waiting for me.
Edit: New third person sample
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Hal: Be the 'Hero'
It turned out that being the hero was pretty lame. Having powers was awesome, having the chance to woo Roxanne as a hero was even more awesome, but being a hero was exactly as lame as all that training with Space Dad had hinted at.
The first problem was, he didn't know where Roxanne was yet. He couldn't hear her anywhere in the city. Second problem was that he didn't hear Megamind anywhere either! And honestly, the only supervillain he'd practiced beating was the blue twerp. These other super-powered people in the city might be a harder to deal with, and he didn't feel like just jumping into a fight like that.
So, now seemed like a time to fly around, eavesdropping on what people were watching in their apartments, and seeing if anything easier popped up. After all, if comics had shown Titan anything, it was that a superhero was supposed to fly around the city and just find guys in ski masks, crouching in alleyways or banks or whatever, pulling off a heist or a mugging. No threat, easy to show off and brag about.
It was not to be. Instead, some frail, little old lady had waved at him, wailing about her cat with some incredibly lame name. It was easy to go up to the balcony the furball had climbed out on, grab it and toss it down at her. That was the sort of thing that got Roxanne to coo about how wonderful Metroman was all the time, right? So he'd rescue some stupid cats and make a reputation for himself like Space Dad kept on at him about. Maybe he'd even practice clever remarks.
...Heh, yeah right. Like he'd waste his time on something as stupid as that.
But right now, the little old lady wasn't cooing at him or anything! Instead, she was glaring at him like he'd done something wrong. Okay, maybe it was a little bit his fault that her groceries were now spilling across the sidewalk, that the one orange had just been run over. And apparently cats didn't know not to pee on their owners when they were rescued, so that damp spot on her sweater might have been a little bit his fault too. Diapers were probably why it was safe with babies. So next time he rescued a cat he'd make sure to hand it over gently.
"Okay, so there's your cat, alive and well!" Titan reassured her, descending next to her. The cat fluffed and dug its claws into the old lady to help reassure her it wasn't going anywhere, and he smiled benevolently, awaiting the praise that would naturally follow.
"If you hurt my Fluffikins, I'll call the police on you! Just see if I won't!" She exclaimed, clutching at it and scowling.
"Huh?" Titan pulled away a little from her. Her increasingly livid expression made absolutely no sense, and he tried to explain that to her. "What are you talking about, I rescued your cat. I didn't hurt it."
She just continued to lecture at him, and after a minute a few of the passersby started to join in. Some complained about all the problems super-powered people made, some told him not to frighten an old lady, and a bunch just glared.
"Ugh, are you freaking kidding me?" This was clearly not worth it, and he took to the air to quickly get out of that scene. He didn't notice the effects from the sudden change in air pressure behind him: people fell over, the rest of the groceries dispersed even further, and the cat was torn from the old lady's shoulders again.
Instead, Titan moved speedily through the air, preoccupied with his own problems. Back in Metro City, the wonderful Metro Man did stuff like this all the time, and people practically fell over to cheer him. As far as he could tell, he had the same powers and a cooler outfit. So why did the old lady get annoyed? This was supposed to be easy. Use his powers, show off being a hero by stopping Megamind, and get the girl. But Megamind didn't seem to be here, and that voice that had sounded like Roxanne wasn't saying anything anymore, so he couldn't follow it either. With no sign of Roxanne, Space Dad or Space Step-Mom, and no rewards for doing the 'right thing'? There was no reason to bother with this.
At least there was an upside now; he recognized the movie playing in an apartment a few buildings down. It was a pretty awesome movie, and Titan hovered outside the window, lounging back in an imaginary lazy-boy to watch it with the random people in there.
Previous version of the third person sample:
Hal let the moment linger into silence. Space Dad had just given him the weird, heroic name "Tighten" and an outfit with cape to go with it. Perhaps most importantly, Space Dad had encouraged him to seek romance with the beautiful Roxanne. Talking about how amazing love was one thing, but his mentor had actually given advice on how to win her over.
Okay, so Space Dad told him to rescue her. Hal didn't want to have to rescue her from Megamind, though. Unlike that idiot Metro Man, he was strong and he was supposed to win. So screw waiting for the next day; he was going to go to her tonight.
"Who wants churros?" Space Step-Mom asked from behind, interrupting his thoughts.
Space Dad and Hal both responded positively, reaching over to receive their respective sticks from her. Hal extended her a polite and pleased thanks to her as she gave him one, and lifted it to better smell it.
At Space Dad's encouragement, unsheathing the churros suddenly became a group salute to the skyline of the city before them. "To Tighten!"
They stared out at the towers ahead as sunset light glimmering off them, and Space Dad made the announcement of the salute itself. "Tomorrow, you will fight Megamind. And the City will know your name."
Hal focused on what this meant for him: finally being the person that Roxanne would idolize as she always had Metro Man. Tomorrow he might fight Megamind, to prove that he was the hero she wanted... and tonight, he would go to finally see her in his heroic guise.
Only, suddenly, the sunset cities weren't in front of him, and the churro smelt horrible. Everything was spinning a little in a way it hadn't since he first gained his super powers, and everything was glowing a little.
"Welcome to the City, Hero" Some weird girl voice said, as a couple little metal objects tumbled out of a machine near him. It told him to pick up a brochure and just laughed.
No matter what he asked, it didn't answer any other questions---not even when he tried punching the wall. Something strange was going on. Space Dad didn't mention him having to fight Megamind in a different city than Metro City. Where was he? And where was Roxanne?!
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
Hal really needs to make some friends. Otherwise he'll continue to treat everything like a real life videogame.
