Tag: teenager

#21 – Madelyn “Maddie” Lopez

| November 22, 2012 | 0 Comments

Maddie Lopez is a quiet, introverted 15-year-old girl, born the third child of four in a cluttered, noisy household. Maddie’s mother, an exceptionally strict Catholic, dominated over her children throughout their lives, a trait that only became greater when Maddie’s father died of a heart attack when she was just seven. Maddie’s sister, Isabella, took up the mantle of her mother’s right hand, baby-sitting her younger siblings and helping do the chores around the house while the eldest son, Miguel, was given free roam to go about the neighborhood and find his way. Maddie’s mother held her two daughters close, dishing out incredibly strict, and a times abusive discipline she called “love’.

Maddie and her siblings were latchkey kids, their mother worked two jobs to support the family after her father died, and Miguel and Isabella took control of the household. Miguel was rarely home, often in the streets, while Isabella quickly grew into a beautiful young woman, catching the eye of boys around the neighborhood. Maddie, however, pulled in where her other siblings reached out. She lost herself in books and comics, and wished the dramatic, luxurious life lived by people in musicals could be one she’d have. Maddie created worlds for herself where she was taller, prettier, and popular.

Most of all, and to her mother’s extreme distaste, Maddie idealized superheroes. Maddie’s mother, among other opinions, felt strongly that superheroes and their like were against nature, abominations running around the earth, absolute proof that the time of judgment was at hand, as the Anti-Christ and his acolytes were spreading their filth around the globe. More than once, Maddie endured a disciplinary beating from her mother upon being found with some magazine or poster praising heroes. The conflict between the opinion of heroes her mother had driven into her, how they were all tainted by evil, and the idealized reality created around them in gossip magazines and television left her always feeling exceptionally guilty about her interest, as if she wasn’t strong enough to resist the charms of evil.

A week before her 16th birthday, Maddie stayed home from school, sick. One day quickly turned into two, and two into three as Maddie ran a fever, racked with nausea and chills. The symptoms lasted for four days before breaking. Maddie had a day of peace, returning to school and inviting friends to her 16th birthday party when she noticed an odd discoloration of the skin on her right hand. The discoloration continued throughout the day, creeping up her arm, her skin turning a sickly grayish blue, her fever returning. Maddie made it all the way home, where she reported her affliction to her mother, who immediately banished her to her room, believing she had become possessed.

Early that evening, Maddie manifested her powers, her body changing from a gawky teen to a seven-and-a-half foot tall demonic creature with greyish-blue skin and two horns atop her head. Still distinctly human-looking (her face, while different, is still identifiably hers), Maddie’s mother nevertheless had all but a complete meltdown upon seeing her new daughter, declaring that her child had been taken by Satan, and attempted to murder Maddie, sending her confused daughter out into the streets alone.

Now, Maddie is still a 16-year-old girl in a new body, being forced to live a new life she is wholly unprepared for. She is still learning the extent of her abilities, including the capability to turn herself into smoke, an immensely accelerated healing factor, and the capability to breathe fire. Despite her powers, Maddie is still at her core a clumsy, shy 16-year-old girl, thrust out of her home, a freak, even among superheroes.

#11 – Carl Stockman

| November 11, 2011 | 0 Comments

Carl is a teenage boy who has embraced his weirdness. He wears old hats, he reads tons of comics, and he doesn’t really care what other people think of him. He recently transferred to Ravensbrook High School, where he’s already undergoing the gauntlet of abuse that the strange kids get.

His one friend – and that’s stretching to word – is Annie Deaver. She’s the one person who’s taken the time to talk to him and try to get to know him, even though that’s doing damage to her own social capital. She likes his unending optimism and his eagerness for everything in life, even if she doesn’t understand it.

But that’s okay – there’s a lot more to him than she knows.

His dragon, for one thing.

Read Carl’s story here: Carl’s Dragon

Day 6: Lighthouse

| November 7, 2011 | 0 Comments

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to draw lately.
(No big loss)

I’ll try and input a drawing here later.

LIGHTHOUSE

Lighthouse is the superhero name of a young man in his late teens. His real name is Jeffrey Weber and he was born with his ability.
Jeffrey can shine two bright lights at will from his eyes.
With effort, he can focus the light into thin pinpoints or flood an area with light.

Because of his birth, he was chosen at a young age to be trained to join a superhero league.

Jeffrey hasn’t seen his parents but for a few hours over several years. He misses them or what little he remembers – neither have any abilities and because of this, Jeffrey’s father suspects his wife of an affair and over the years has grown to hate her because of it.

Jeffrey tries his best to uphold the laws and ideals of the league he’s a part of.

#3 – Jundir

| November 3, 2011 | 0 Comments

This looks better in my head.

Jundir is a boy who is of the Vas’alim people – a nomadic tribe that wanders an arid region of their world. They’ve wandered for generations, and good deal of their culture and their lifestyle revolves around the needs that arise when you live in a place where water is difficult to find. One of the most prestigious positions in this culture, then, are the Water Hunters.

The Water Hunters are young men who seek out sources of water near their encampment, and look for new sites for the clan to move to in the future. If they come back with a good supply of water, which they carry in waxed leather bags, there is a celebration in the camp.

There is nothing Jundir wants more than to be a Water Hunter when he comes of age. Unfortunately, he lost a leg to a bite from a Rock Snake five years ago. With only the one leg, he has no chance of doing any of the jobs that a man is supposed to do, and this has left him bitter and angry at a young age.

His grandfather is a Rainsinger, a kind of spiritual man who dances and sings to bring the infrequent rains to the camps. He sees the pain the boy is going through, but his attempts to try and help Jundir reconcile himself with his condition are futile, or very nearly so.

Read his story here: Rainsinger

#2 – Alwin Pemberton, the Bright Knight

| November 3, 2011 | 0 Comments

They were truly the Dark Ages…

For the previous four centuries, the Roman Empire fought with all it’s might against the invading forces from beyond the skies.

Even with their glimmering flying machines, their impervious suits of armor, their divine strength and wisdom and their abundant knowledge of the mystic arts, it had taken them that long to truly crush the Last Legion’s mighty spirit.

But, alas, Rome did fall and burn, and the age of the God Conquerors thus began: With them and their progeny as the new lords and ladies ruling over the land, and the mere mortal men their slaves and workforce.

Some accepted the inevitability of their fate, as it was the place of mortals to serve and worship the gods. Yet others rebeled.

Brave men continued to fought against the invading hordes, knowing full well their numerous advantages against the mere steel of their swords.

Wise men studied day and night to master the god’s secrets, using their own magics against them, even at the cost of their minds and bodies.

And beyond them all was a man both wise and brave. A man who was able to bring hope and unity throughout the land, taking their rebel forces and turning them into an actual army. Many saw him as a messiah. The once and future king returning to his throne to deliver us from evil and slavery.

Sadly, Alwin Pemberton was not this man.

In fact, Alwin Pemberton was not even born when the brave prophesied king and his armies fell under the Conquering God’s war machines in their glorious last stand. And though the invaders suffered greatly, they were still able to recover.

Yet Alwin Pemberton would have to do.

Those at least were the last thoughts of a dying Myrddin Wyllt, the legendary king’s military advisor and chief sorcerer, whom Alwin stumbled into one stormy night while looking for cover under a dead three through an act of sheer happenstance.

Except the old wizard did not believe in such things as luck or coincidences.

For the last 14 years, Myrddin had been both thinkering and guarding the late king’s best guarded secret: A suit of armor made entirely with metals and magic from the God Conqueror’s arsenals. It had been forged more than a thousand times by expert blacksmiths who covered it in protective runes and charms from their frozen homelands. Myrddin had conjured for it two giant metal wings, made with the same mystic cauldrons the gods used to propel their vessels through the clouds.

And finally, there was the sword: The Grass Blade, so called for the green hue with which it’s otherworldly steel shined. The blade had been forged through a ritual known only to the mage himself who had even gone so far as to temper the rare metal with his own hands. It was capable of cutting through anything and anyone, deflecting all attacks no matter their nature and was even supposed to be able to summon the winds and the lighting to smite down it’s enemies.

All of this power was now on young Alwin’s hands. It would be his life’s mission from now on to continue with Myrddin and the King’s crusade. To learn the secrets of the armor and become the hero his people so desperately needed. He would need to use the armor to bring hope and strength to the masses, to embolden them into once again unite against the God Conquerors.

And so begins the legend of the man who united the whole world in it’s darkest moment against the first alien invasion never known by mankind. This is the story of King Alwin Pemberton, The Bright Knight.