Post by Juggers on Jul 17, 2006 16:34:48 GMT -5
As per before, I'll create a proper account if and when he is approved, plus will need to work on a way to get him introduced to Rogues Place ;D
Name: Simon Burkett
Codename(s): Never given
Affiliation: Restored Human
Age: 19
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 185lbs
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Green
Appearance: Average height and average build meant that Simon was never going to be first choice for the football team. He is a little short-sighted and wears contact lenses to compensate but can sometimes be caught wearing a pair of very geeky looking glasses that do nothing to enhance his appearance. He avoids them where at all possible for exactly that reason. For all of his physical short-comings however, he isn't a bad looking lad and has a good brain behind those green eyes. Never one for following fashion Simon leans toward what takes the least effort when it comes to his appearance. Sometimes his coal-black hair is spiked with gel. Sometimes it isn't, it depends very much on whether or not he can be bothered when the morning comes. Having most recently been a student, clothing falls into the 'what's nearest that dosn't smell' category.
Mutant Appearance: The manifestation of Simons' mutation caused some very obvious and very awkward physical changes. His eyes clouded to a pearly white, his hair matted into something more akin to bristles than hair and his skin had the look and texture of reptilian hide. His outlandish appearance, coupled with his actual powers were a strong, driving force when it came to accepting the cure. Some mutants might think of their skills as gifts. Simon has always seen his as a curse.
Personality: Shy and a little introverted, Simon is slow to trust but open and friendly once a bond is forged. He likes movies, role-playing and video games and was (until his mutation) studying software engineering at college. He still has not yet grown out of the girl-awkwardness that accompanies the early teens and will often blush and stumble over his words if presented with a pretty face. At nineteen he still has not had a girlfriend, something that was a source of some good-natured jibes by his friends, and not so good-natured jibes by the jocks. He lacks confidence in himself despite the fact he is both intelligent and witty and quite firmly believes that he is the worlds biggest loser. With the possible exception of his former best-friend Murray who really is the worlds biggest loser.
Powers and Abilities: The external changes wrought upon Simons' body were accompanied by some quite extraordinary internal changes. Several organs restructured themselves and were joined by a couple of unique glands. The modified organs allowed Simons' body to process anything consumed into virtually any toxin imaginable. The toxins would then be passed to the glands where they could be excreted from any bodily orifice. In short, his body became a poison farm. Anything from a mild hallucinogenic to lethal neuro-toxins were his to command. Though he never experimented with it, he also had the ability to infuse the bristles on his body with the given poison and fire them by muscle reflex. In addition to this he could excrete a viscous fluid from his reptilian hands and feet to allow him to grip and climb otherwise unscalable surfaces. These later abilities were left undiscovered however so desperate he was for the cure.
Weaknesses: Most people found his outward appearance horrific and reason enough to revile him before they ever found out about his abilities. Beyond that, Simon never learned to control his powers and could very easily poison those around him completely by accident. Indeed, it was such an incident that drove him from his college campus. At a more basic level Simon has no confidence in himself and is very awkward around new people and in group social situations such as parties.
History: Simon James Burkett was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Peter and Mary Burkett. He was a normal, happy child and at the age of five was given a sister, Susan to keep him company. Mr. and Mrs. Burkett were very proud. They lived a normal, peaceful, suburban existence on the outskirts of Boston, Mr. Burkett working nine until five as a hardware store manager and Mrs. Burkett keeping the home and raising the kids. In all ways they were a normal, decent, happy family. They had no trouble with their neighbors, paid their bills on time and had a two week family holiday every year. Nothing exotic, just some time in the sun down in Florida to ease the weary soul and rest the work-tired mind.
Peter and Mary worried a little that young Simon didn't seem to play well with the other children, preferring instead to keep to himself and play games of his own imagining. He suffered only a little at the hands of the bullies, as all loner children must do but was mostly able to avoid them since he was brighter than average for his age. He never excelled at sports but his academic achievements more than compensated for this short-falling and his mother and father were never disappointed with his grades.
At twelve he nearly drowned in a boating accident while on holiday and developed a minor case of hydro-phobia, only so much as to make him nervous of boats however. He still enjoyed the swimming pool where the bottom was in plain sight. Little Susan had found the whole watery incident delightful however and would later go on to take up surfing as a hobby.
He graduated from highschool with outstanding grades and, after careful consideration, decided to further his studies at Ithaca college in New York. His parents pointed out that there were superior places for him to study but they would have taken him further from home and Simon was still uncomfortable with the idea of leaving everything familiar behind. His parents relented in the end; it was clear that he would excel wherever he chose to study and the qualification would be the same at the end.
Wrapped up in his studies he barely noticed the Liberty Island incident; as far as he was concerned, people should be allowed to be who they were without others telling them otherwise. Mutants were just unusual people, different only in terms of strange powers or altered appearance. People through the ages had been persecuted through ignorance or malice and the end result had always been the same; persecution, conflict, compromise and, eventually, acceptance. As far as he was concerned this would be no different.
Then he had started to change.
It hadn't happened over night, but in stages his skin started to change. To begin with he simply passed it off as a rash, but as
it spread it became increasingly difficult to both ignore and conceal. His hair stiffened into spikes that, to begin with, he passed off as a particularly extreme style. Then he took to wearing a hat. Finally, he started skipping classes, closeting himself in his room and working from there. Only his room-mate Murray saw the extent of the change and knew Simon for what he was becoming.
Had he known of Xaviers institute he might have done something then, might have been able to get help, but he did not. And great as Professor X was, there were simply too many mutants across the world for him to address them all individually. Simon never had a chance.
His grades began to deteriorate from missed lectures despite his best efforts to compensate. Personal study can only account for so much. His parents became concerned that he was being bullied in some way or, more worryingly, he had picked up some sort of bad habit from life at college. Mr. and Mrs. Burkett had heard what students got up to once the studying was done but trusted their Simon to have no part in it.
It reached the point where he faced expulsion for unacceptable attendance and his parents loomed large upon the horizon; the threats
of a visit finally resolving into a certainty. Simon couldn't face confronting them with what he had become, and gathering up a few things left the campus to stay with Murray, whose parents were away on vacation. That same night Murray threw a party in the vacant house, it would be the last night he saw his friend.
The party spilled over into the room Simon was using with catastrophic consequences. One minute he was studying alone in the spare room, the next it was awash with drunken, partying teenagers. Though hidden beneath layers of clothing, dark glasses and cap, it was still clear that there was something not quite right about young Simon, something that the revelers decided to pick on. What started out as a mild teasing quickly turned into push-the-mutie.
The reaction was startling.
In seconds the house was flooded with gas potent enough to render even the most robust jock unconscious. Simon thought he had killed them and fled in terror. For several days he hid himself away in alleys and derelict buildings, too scared to go back, too scared to go back to college, too scared to even go home. He was also too scared to kill himself, though the thought crossed his mind on more than one occasion. After living out of bins for just under a week he caught the news about the cure and without a second thought headed for Worthington Labs.
Sample post: Simon stepped off the train into the warm Mississippi morning. This place was great. He'd learned to love the heat from his Florida vacations and would have taken the train there except it was certainly one of the places his parents would look. He pulled the cash-card out of his pocket and smiled a little sadly; there wasn't alot of point in keeping this now, it could too easily be traced. He had already emptied the account of his meager savings and stashed the cash at the bottom of his bag.
He supposed he'd have to get a job pretty soon, the money wouldn't last long, even if he had only spent enough to replace his ragged clothes with some newer ones. Getting a job meant finding a place to stay, preferably one that wouldn't cost too much. He wondered if there was some sort of hostel around that he could stay in until he found his feet, they had those in the big cities he had visited.
First impressions however told him that this was about as far removed from the big city as it was possible to be. It made him smile and worry at the same time. He liked country towns, or at least he thought he did, he'd mostly only seen them through the car window as he'd passed through on vacation, but he'd always fancied that they must be nice, quiet, slow places to live.
He thought all of this as he strolled down the road through town, he also thought that he might be a little over-dressed for the local weather and quickly stripped off his jacket, instead opting to tie it by the sleeves around his waist.
"I must look like one hell of a tourist," he muttered aloud as he trudged along, rolling his shirt sleeves up. There was so little traffic, he marveled. Back home the roads would already be alive with vehicles bustling into the city in an effort to start the working day just that little bit sooner. Simon could drive, but he couldn't see himself getting a car any time soon. In fact, he pondered, he couldn't see himself getting anything short of his next meal any time soon.
He bent the cash-card in two a couple of times before ripping the tough plastic apart. He looked down at the torn pieces, noting that the break had gone right through the Burkett part of his name. It seemed somehow symbolic, he thought, a little sadly. His old life was about as broken as it could get, and here he was destroying another tiny part of it. With a sigh of final resignation he tossed the pieces away into a bush.
Three steps later and he hurried back to retrieve the bits. He never had been able to litter, it just didn't seem right somehow.
By now he had reached the other side of town and noticed what must be the largest store the place had to offer. It also had litter bins around the edge of the parking lot. Simon crossed the road and deposited his fractured card, shaking his head that despite his troubles he was still worrying about bits of discarded plastic. He was about to resume his trudging when his stomach reminded him that it hadn't been fed since yesterday afternoon and it was high time it was refilled.
He sighed again and pulled a ten dollar bill from the little stash at the bottom of his pack and headed for the store. He was going to have breakfast while he could still afford it.
See Juggers for Player details.
Name: Simon Burkett
Codename(s): Never given
Affiliation: Restored Human
Age: 19
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 185lbs
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Green
Appearance: Average height and average build meant that Simon was never going to be first choice for the football team. He is a little short-sighted and wears contact lenses to compensate but can sometimes be caught wearing a pair of very geeky looking glasses that do nothing to enhance his appearance. He avoids them where at all possible for exactly that reason. For all of his physical short-comings however, he isn't a bad looking lad and has a good brain behind those green eyes. Never one for following fashion Simon leans toward what takes the least effort when it comes to his appearance. Sometimes his coal-black hair is spiked with gel. Sometimes it isn't, it depends very much on whether or not he can be bothered when the morning comes. Having most recently been a student, clothing falls into the 'what's nearest that dosn't smell' category.
Mutant Appearance: The manifestation of Simons' mutation caused some very obvious and very awkward physical changes. His eyes clouded to a pearly white, his hair matted into something more akin to bristles than hair and his skin had the look and texture of reptilian hide. His outlandish appearance, coupled with his actual powers were a strong, driving force when it came to accepting the cure. Some mutants might think of their skills as gifts. Simon has always seen his as a curse.
Personality: Shy and a little introverted, Simon is slow to trust but open and friendly once a bond is forged. He likes movies, role-playing and video games and was (until his mutation) studying software engineering at college. He still has not yet grown out of the girl-awkwardness that accompanies the early teens and will often blush and stumble over his words if presented with a pretty face. At nineteen he still has not had a girlfriend, something that was a source of some good-natured jibes by his friends, and not so good-natured jibes by the jocks. He lacks confidence in himself despite the fact he is both intelligent and witty and quite firmly believes that he is the worlds biggest loser. With the possible exception of his former best-friend Murray who really is the worlds biggest loser.
Powers and Abilities: The external changes wrought upon Simons' body were accompanied by some quite extraordinary internal changes. Several organs restructured themselves and were joined by a couple of unique glands. The modified organs allowed Simons' body to process anything consumed into virtually any toxin imaginable. The toxins would then be passed to the glands where they could be excreted from any bodily orifice. In short, his body became a poison farm. Anything from a mild hallucinogenic to lethal neuro-toxins were his to command. Though he never experimented with it, he also had the ability to infuse the bristles on his body with the given poison and fire them by muscle reflex. In addition to this he could excrete a viscous fluid from his reptilian hands and feet to allow him to grip and climb otherwise unscalable surfaces. These later abilities were left undiscovered however so desperate he was for the cure.
Weaknesses: Most people found his outward appearance horrific and reason enough to revile him before they ever found out about his abilities. Beyond that, Simon never learned to control his powers and could very easily poison those around him completely by accident. Indeed, it was such an incident that drove him from his college campus. At a more basic level Simon has no confidence in himself and is very awkward around new people and in group social situations such as parties.
History: Simon James Burkett was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Peter and Mary Burkett. He was a normal, happy child and at the age of five was given a sister, Susan to keep him company. Mr. and Mrs. Burkett were very proud. They lived a normal, peaceful, suburban existence on the outskirts of Boston, Mr. Burkett working nine until five as a hardware store manager and Mrs. Burkett keeping the home and raising the kids. In all ways they were a normal, decent, happy family. They had no trouble with their neighbors, paid their bills on time and had a two week family holiday every year. Nothing exotic, just some time in the sun down in Florida to ease the weary soul and rest the work-tired mind.
Peter and Mary worried a little that young Simon didn't seem to play well with the other children, preferring instead to keep to himself and play games of his own imagining. He suffered only a little at the hands of the bullies, as all loner children must do but was mostly able to avoid them since he was brighter than average for his age. He never excelled at sports but his academic achievements more than compensated for this short-falling and his mother and father were never disappointed with his grades.
At twelve he nearly drowned in a boating accident while on holiday and developed a minor case of hydro-phobia, only so much as to make him nervous of boats however. He still enjoyed the swimming pool where the bottom was in plain sight. Little Susan had found the whole watery incident delightful however and would later go on to take up surfing as a hobby.
He graduated from highschool with outstanding grades and, after careful consideration, decided to further his studies at Ithaca college in New York. His parents pointed out that there were superior places for him to study but they would have taken him further from home and Simon was still uncomfortable with the idea of leaving everything familiar behind. His parents relented in the end; it was clear that he would excel wherever he chose to study and the qualification would be the same at the end.
Wrapped up in his studies he barely noticed the Liberty Island incident; as far as he was concerned, people should be allowed to be who they were without others telling them otherwise. Mutants were just unusual people, different only in terms of strange powers or altered appearance. People through the ages had been persecuted through ignorance or malice and the end result had always been the same; persecution, conflict, compromise and, eventually, acceptance. As far as he was concerned this would be no different.
Then he had started to change.
It hadn't happened over night, but in stages his skin started to change. To begin with he simply passed it off as a rash, but as
it spread it became increasingly difficult to both ignore and conceal. His hair stiffened into spikes that, to begin with, he passed off as a particularly extreme style. Then he took to wearing a hat. Finally, he started skipping classes, closeting himself in his room and working from there. Only his room-mate Murray saw the extent of the change and knew Simon for what he was becoming.
Had he known of Xaviers institute he might have done something then, might have been able to get help, but he did not. And great as Professor X was, there were simply too many mutants across the world for him to address them all individually. Simon never had a chance.
His grades began to deteriorate from missed lectures despite his best efforts to compensate. Personal study can only account for so much. His parents became concerned that he was being bullied in some way or, more worryingly, he had picked up some sort of bad habit from life at college. Mr. and Mrs. Burkett had heard what students got up to once the studying was done but trusted their Simon to have no part in it.
It reached the point where he faced expulsion for unacceptable attendance and his parents loomed large upon the horizon; the threats
of a visit finally resolving into a certainty. Simon couldn't face confronting them with what he had become, and gathering up a few things left the campus to stay with Murray, whose parents were away on vacation. That same night Murray threw a party in the vacant house, it would be the last night he saw his friend.
The party spilled over into the room Simon was using with catastrophic consequences. One minute he was studying alone in the spare room, the next it was awash with drunken, partying teenagers. Though hidden beneath layers of clothing, dark glasses and cap, it was still clear that there was something not quite right about young Simon, something that the revelers decided to pick on. What started out as a mild teasing quickly turned into push-the-mutie.
The reaction was startling.
In seconds the house was flooded with gas potent enough to render even the most robust jock unconscious. Simon thought he had killed them and fled in terror. For several days he hid himself away in alleys and derelict buildings, too scared to go back, too scared to go back to college, too scared to even go home. He was also too scared to kill himself, though the thought crossed his mind on more than one occasion. After living out of bins for just under a week he caught the news about the cure and without a second thought headed for Worthington Labs.
Sample post: Simon stepped off the train into the warm Mississippi morning. This place was great. He'd learned to love the heat from his Florida vacations and would have taken the train there except it was certainly one of the places his parents would look. He pulled the cash-card out of his pocket and smiled a little sadly; there wasn't alot of point in keeping this now, it could too easily be traced. He had already emptied the account of his meager savings and stashed the cash at the bottom of his bag.
He supposed he'd have to get a job pretty soon, the money wouldn't last long, even if he had only spent enough to replace his ragged clothes with some newer ones. Getting a job meant finding a place to stay, preferably one that wouldn't cost too much. He wondered if there was some sort of hostel around that he could stay in until he found his feet, they had those in the big cities he had visited.
First impressions however told him that this was about as far removed from the big city as it was possible to be. It made him smile and worry at the same time. He liked country towns, or at least he thought he did, he'd mostly only seen them through the car window as he'd passed through on vacation, but he'd always fancied that they must be nice, quiet, slow places to live.
He thought all of this as he strolled down the road through town, he also thought that he might be a little over-dressed for the local weather and quickly stripped off his jacket, instead opting to tie it by the sleeves around his waist.
"I must look like one hell of a tourist," he muttered aloud as he trudged along, rolling his shirt sleeves up. There was so little traffic, he marveled. Back home the roads would already be alive with vehicles bustling into the city in an effort to start the working day just that little bit sooner. Simon could drive, but he couldn't see himself getting a car any time soon. In fact, he pondered, he couldn't see himself getting anything short of his next meal any time soon.
He bent the cash-card in two a couple of times before ripping the tough plastic apart. He looked down at the torn pieces, noting that the break had gone right through the Burkett part of his name. It seemed somehow symbolic, he thought, a little sadly. His old life was about as broken as it could get, and here he was destroying another tiny part of it. With a sigh of final resignation he tossed the pieces away into a bush.
Three steps later and he hurried back to retrieve the bits. He never had been able to litter, it just didn't seem right somehow.
By now he had reached the other side of town and noticed what must be the largest store the place had to offer. It also had litter bins around the edge of the parking lot. Simon crossed the road and deposited his fractured card, shaking his head that despite his troubles he was still worrying about bits of discarded plastic. He was about to resume his trudging when his stomach reminded him that it hadn't been fed since yesterday afternoon and it was high time it was refilled.
He sighed again and pulled a ten dollar bill from the little stash at the bottom of his pack and headed for the store. He was going to have breakfast while he could still afford it.
See Juggers for Player details.
