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May. 30th, 2014 08:46 pmPlayer Information:
Name: Marie
Age: If I double my age, I can sing "Bosum Buddies" from Mame without appearing too young. (I am over 18).
Contact: seemarierun at plurk
Other Characters Played: Bart Allen |![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
backinakidflash
Character Information:
Name: María Aracely Josefina Penalba de las Heras (Aracely Penalba is what's generally used/said), alias Angela María Lopez, codename Hummingbird
Canon: Marvel Comics 616
Canon Point: The end of New Warriors v. 5 #5. Aracely has requested they go to Disneyland, however the dog piloting Mount Wundagore does not know where that is.
Age: 15-16
Reference Links:
http://marvel.wikia.com/Mar%C3%ADa_Aracely_Penalba_%28Earth-616%29
Setting:
The Marvel 616 universe is meant to be much like the world that we know, and it is nearly always set in the present day. There is nothing that exists in our world that does not exist in 616. However, there are numerous additions to it. The primary one is that super-humans, superheroes, and super-villains exist. Others are less noticeable, such as the fictional country Genosha (detailed further down) or the American government's spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and its Canadian counterpart Department K, both of which tend to be the government's way of working with or against super-humans.
These super-humans have supernatural abilities, ranging from the expected flight and super strength combination to the absurd, like having a digestive tract comprised of two sentient maggots. They have come about these abilities in various ways.
First, there are the aliens. The Skrull and Kree are two of the more famous; these races are constantly at war with each other. Skrulls, at one point, took a fancy to impersonating super-humans of Earth in an attempt to take over the world. It didn't work. There was a Kree Captain Marvel though, and there have been good Skrulls too.
Until several years ago, the most common way to find oneself with a superpower was to have been born a mutant, a human with an "X-gene." While some physical mutations caused by this gene appear at birth, most mutants first realize their status during puberty while under great stress. It has been theorized that it is the nature of this stressor that defines the actual abilities granted by the X-gene. A girl whose best friend is in a coma receives telepathy; a boy who was gravely injured is granted a healing factor. This first use of power, or manifestation, can be violent and uncontrolled.
The mutant population was nearly obliterated several years ago on a day called "M-Day". A handful (definitely less than 100, probably less than 50) of people know the full and complete truth of what happened, but Aracely is confirmed to not be one of them. She does know that most of them seem to live at Xavier's school in New York, that the other telepaths there hate her because her head hurts them, that she likes most of the mutants that she's met, and that she is not allowed to attend the school.
The "mutant replacement" [let's be real, Marvel Editorial, that's what it is] are the Inhumans. They are "normal" folks who were not born with a genetic difference, but wound up with powers due to exposure to the Terrigen Mists, a process known as terregenesis. Millions of years ago, the Kree experimented on early humans, creating the genetically superior race, some with powers, that became known as the Inhumans. Though the Kree abandoned the project, the Inhumans themselves continued it through further experimentation with selective breeding and terregenesis. At some point, these Inhumans said "fuck it" and moved to the moon. Small tribes of the original Inhumans remained a part of the greater world, without knowing their origins, and bred with humans to create hidden hybrids (I think. Hybrids were there, okay? #comics). When the Terrigen Mist was released worldwide in a ridiculous plot, these hybrids then developed powers. Mark Sim (Haechi), one of Aracely's possible new teammates, is one of these new Inhumans.
Due to incidents like "destroying several city blocks" and the bad PR that follows them everywhere, mutants are not much loved by the general populace of the world, because "blah blah blah the world hates and fears what it doesn't understand." Mutants are hated to the point of 'average' humans forming multiple, violent, anti-mutant organizations that are willing to do anything to drain the X-gene from the gene pool. Inhumans, too, are generally looked at with the same eyes as mutants, although there isn't decades of canon to prove that this is a permanent trend. It's slightly irrational, as some of the other ways to become a hero turn out rather beloved heroes, but that's how it works.
As for the rest of the super-humans, some were experimented on, like Captain America. Many were drenched in radioactive rays/materials/bug bites, like the Hulk, Speedball, and Spider-Man, and others are magically attuned or demigods, like Aracely herself. Still more can't claim the abilities as their own, having instead used their technological genius to create gadgets that let them fly or shoot missiles or ray beams, as her teammate Sun Girl does.
Spider-Man, though Aracely has never met the man himself, needs to be briefly detailed. Once upon a time, there was a geeky teenager named Peter Parker. He was bitten by a radioactive spider at a science exhibit and was gifted with superpowers. Peter selfishly did not immediately sacrifice his life for the greater good, because he was a kid and did not listen when his Uncle Ben said trite bullshit like "with great power comes great responsibility." Then Uncle Ben died, and Peter has tormented himself with guilt and super-heroing ever since.
Spider-Man was one of the first (and most famous) of the superheroes running around New York City. He has accrued quite a varied rogues gallery of genius mad scientists, angry bosses, and super-powered thugs. Of note to this app is a crazy, murdering geneticist named Miles Warren, who is known by the supervillain name "the Jackal." He decided that the best way to defeat Spider-man was by cloning him and made multiple attempts at it.
The first "viable" clone became the man known as Kaine (or Kaine Parker, depending on who you're asking). Kaine did not inherit Peter's intellect and was physically scarred. Considering him a failed experiment, the Jackal threw him out in the bio-waste bin. But life will out, and Kaine escaped to become a serial killer and Spidey-rogue. Eventually, through the interventions of others, Kaine developed something of a (gasp!) conscious and decided what he really wanted to do was lie on a beach in Mexico for the rest of his life. On the way there, he stumbled on several million dollars in cash and a freight container with dozens of dead bodies. There was one lone survivor: Aracely.
It completely derailed his trip. He stayed in Houston to make sure that she would be okay, continued staying when her hospital was attacked, and then kidnapped her from the hospital when the doctor, Donald Meland, informed him that she would be deported from the United States back to Mexico - where there seemed to be people waiting to kill her. He continued to stay in Houston and look after her, in an effort to give her the second chance at life that he had so desperately wanted. He became the perfect hero for Houston, rough around the edges, liable to cursing out the people he saves for being stupid, but willing to do what was needed to be done. When the world bottomed out on him, he finally took off to Mexico - with Aracely in tow.
Unlike Kaine, most heroes don't operate completely solo. There are a lot of teams running around the universe. Mutants tend to run with the X-Men (or any of the umpteen teams that start with X-) who fight on behalf of mutants - or fight against ones that sought to use their powers for evil. The do-gooding of the rest of the super-humans tend to gravitate to the more legally recognized, government-chartered Avengers. The Avengers exists to fight off huge, world-threatening Bad Guys that none of them could take on their own. There are always several independent groups floating around the 616-verse. Aracely recently has fallen in with one of the more notorious ones: the New Warriors.
The New Warriors have been formed and reformed several times in canon, but there are a few constants: they have no idea what they're doing. Mistakes are made. The biggest 'mistake' lead to a supervillian blowing up with enough force to knock down several hundred square yards of buildings in Stamford, CT, killing 612 civilians in the process. The fallout from that day lead to the Registration Act and the entire Civil War crossover. The New Warriors went from being that vaguely clueless New York teenager team to notorious.
This incarnation isn't even a fully fledged team yet, as three members want to go home and a fourth is on a quest of her own. The only people who seem committed to forming a team are the two original New Warriors, Justice and Speedball, and Aracely herself. It's more of a team-up at the moment, but as far as she is concerned, it is a superhero team and she is a superhero now. Therefore, her teammates are as follows:
Kaine/Scarlet Spider: He saved her life, quite literally, rescuing her when she had been intentionally left to die, and he has become her de facto guardian. She has him wrapped around her little finger.
Vance Astrovik/Justice: One of the two original New Warriors making up this team, he is the leader by right (and because no one else wants the job). A former Avengers, he generally has his head screwed on straight.
Robbie Baldwin/Speedball: The other veteran New Warrior and the lone survivor of the squad that was involved in Stamford, Robbie appears to be doing his best to act like the past couple of years never happened. She has a crush on him. He most likely does not have his head on straight.
Faira sar Namora/Water Snake: A mysterious Atlantean who is on a quest to find a missing/dead/reincarnated member of the royal family that she happens to be a dead ringer for. She is not Namorita. Head straightness: doubtful.
Mark Sim/Haechi: An American teen who became an Inhuman when the world was exposed to Terrigen Mists. He was in the right place at the right time to save Sun Girl, and the wrong place at the wrong time to continue a normal life. He was drug into this mess because his energy-eating ability was too useful in the fight.
Selah Burke/Sun Girl: Daughter of the supervillain Lightmaster (although she is obfuscating her origin story to them), Selah stole her father's tech to become a superhero after meeting Spider-man.
Personality:
What is someone like when you strip them of all but the freshest of memories? If Aracely is someone to judge by, they're you're stereotypical teenagers. Aracely has almost no memories before arriving in Houston. The one that she has is about two days before then, and it's debatable if it's even real as Aracely has both dreams and waking visions that seemingly based in her demigod nature.
In effect, Aracely is a blank slate at the start of her canon. There are a lot of things that a normal person her age would know (for instance, what a rodeo is), and she does not. She gleans information from the minds of those around her and watches a lot of TV, which seems to help. She's also incredibly curious and and will pepper people with rapid fire questions about whatever catches her attention - whatever it is. She is slightly unfocused and almost dreamy about everything, meaning that she can be vague and random and absent-minded. Her creator (and sole author) has said that she doesn't remember much of her days.
Aracely has no filter. Without life experiences, she doesn't understand that there are things one does not bring up in a group. She asked Speedball if he still cuts himself at a restaurant in front of teammates. She always speaks her mind, loudly and firmly. If she has a thought, you'll know. If you don't like it, you'll know more. She doesn't care if you're built like a Mac truck either. And don't curse at her, she will get a dollar in her swear jar. It can be a detriment, because she does seem to be able to read a situation very well. For instance, she is the one who informs Kaine that Annabelle has feelings for him (although this might be her abusing her power).
Despite her bluntness, she's pleasant and can be handled in a conversation. Providing her an answer (the more to-the-point the better) may temporarily shut her up. It's better to distract her. She is inherently simple, for lack of a better way to put it. She doesn't over-think things, her emotions are young and instantaneous. Her immediate latching onto Kaine as her savior/big brother/mentor speaks to this, as does her overwhelming glee to see a rodeo (she found out what they were the day before) and her declaring that she was in love with Speedball (she knew him for a week, and that's pushing it. She also might not know his name but what are these details when you're 16 and clueless).
It bothers her, to an extent, that she doesn't remember her past, but Aracely lives in-the-moment for most of the day. She isn't horribly scarred by the trauma of waking up in a freight container in Houston, buried under dead bodies. This isn't to say that it doesn't bother her. She occasionally gets upset about it, has nightmares and flashbacks, but, all in all, it's not that bad given that she woke up in a pile of dead people. It does affect her actions. The first time she came to in the hotel suite, she tried to attack Kaine's newfound friend, Annabelle, as she was afraid that someone had come to kill her. She succeeded in clocking Kaine with a lamp.
She doesn't scare easily at all - and she doesn't let fear stop her when she feels it. Fresh from her initial rescue, she didn't stay hidden when a fiery assassin threatened her doctor. There wasn't anything she could do at the time, and she did beg to be left alone, but she didn't cower silently and let someone else die in her place. She later doesn't hesitate to join into the fight against a robbery gang of heavily armed Santas.
There can be a ruthless streak to her, as well. When she was being chased by werewolves, she lead them into a fight with a gun-toting gang, without concern for the gang members. In fact, there was quite a nasty little smile on her face when it worked, as if to say "now you're in for it."
What is she scared of? Losing Kaine, either to abandonment or to the Other. Aracely can be cunningly manipulative. She doesn't want Kaine to leave her, viewing him as her protector even before her dreams label him her champion. She finds ways to increase the odds of him staying in Houston without using her powers and without letting him know. When he transforms to the Other, she tries at first to convince herself that he is still in there; not running even when she probes his mind and finds no humanity left. Instead, she stays and pleads for him to come back, thinking of how now is when Kaine should be running in to save her. When he snaps out of it, she doesn't blame or judge him for what happened. She doesn't see someone's "bad" side as negating the proven good in them.
She's protective of Kaine and her friends. That gang of armed Santas were holding their friend Annabelle hostage and another friend, police officer Wally Layton, was there as well. There was no way she was staying out of it. It's his being prone to death that spurs her into becoming a hero. Even though her first "mission" is accompanying him to Xavier's school for mutants to help him assassinate Wolverine. Kaine needs her help, OK? He has her loyalty, even if he doesn't completely want it.
She does treat superhero-ism with her standard naïveté though, making her own costume and insisting on him calling her Hummingbird. It continues into New Warriors, jumping up and down and shouting "Yay!", shrieking about how they're going to be superheroes in the middle of a fight. She thinks it's fantastic and doesn't understand why the rest of them aren't nearly as excited.
Hero-related things aside, her life is relaxed. Aracely doesn't go to school, being that she's an illegal citizen prone to floating upside down and speaking in a weird voice and reading people's minds. Oh, and she lives in a hotel with a guy 10 years older than her that she isn't related to. She likes rodeos and barbecue and big blue hoodies. She enjoys watching TV and eating lots and lots of bad-for-you food in the messiest way possible. Her favorite hobby is talking. She's very playful, even when she's using her powers - she has made people afraid of spiders and guns and made them love puppies. Because she can.
Appearance:
Out of costume and In costume
Abilities:
She has been called both a telepath and an empath. She can read people's thoughts and emotions and even glean information like favorite colors and learn the languages that they speak instantly. Her specialty is fears, though, and she can force people to be afraid. When she intends to use this power, she usually uses a vocal cue ("It's okay to be scared" or something similar); however, she has also unintentionally projected her own fears onto bystanders. Her mind seems to have a psionic defense/attack, as other experienced telepaths (like the Stepford Cuckoos) were shown to be in great distress after trying to read her mind, and Aracely didn't know why.
While she has some defenses, she doesn't seem to be very good at ignoring other people's thoughts ("I can't sleep with all your not caring"). She is excessive with her delving into others' heads, but it doesn't seem like it's entirely her fault - she doesn't know how to keep them out of hers. While she was running from the werewolves, her actions mimicked those of Kaine's, who was still bring attacked. Similarly, the words and actions of people she ran passed matched her own.
"Floating" - this is what she calls it, as her power of flight is usually depicted simply hovering. She can hover several feet off the ground and remain steady. Presumably she doesn't have much in the way of propulsion, or has only begun to figure that part out. She has only recently been shown getting anywhere with it (and carrying a person, no less) - so presumably she is making headway there. I'm going with a very basic sort of flight.
A brief sidenote on the canonically not-quite explained Aztec religions:
I can't decide whether this should be in personality or setting or here. Aracely has been declared a demigod in narrative boxes and by the agents of the High Evolutionary. She has visions of Aztlán, the legendary home of the Aztec people, where she sees a talking coyote and the (also talking) bodies of what she believes are her dead parents. She is told repeatedly that she is the left-handed Hummingbird (Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war) and that Mictlan (the underworld) is rising (or will rise). According to the Aztec mythos, we are currently in the 5th world creation (the previous four have ended), and she is told that the fifth creation is ending. In addition, she's been told that either she goes to Aztlán and dies or else everyone will die. Given that Aztec creation stories involve gods sacrificing themselves and that Dr. McCoy gets weird results on a brain scan, it would seem that Aracely's powers are the results of being a demigod.
Inventory:
Her superhero uniform!!
Suitability:
She's the reincarnation of the Aztec god of war, human sacrifice, and the sun (or else just occasionally possessed by him). She's got this.
Seriously though, Aracely is a tough cookie who's been through a lot and come out relatively unscathed. She doesn't back down from the scary stuff and takes a strange glee in seeing/participating in fights.
Suite:
WOOD! OMG THEY LIVE IN TREEHOUSES I WANT A TREEHOUSE I CAN FLOAT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW I CAN FLOAT TO MY ROOM I CAN LEAN OUT THE WINDOWS AND WAVE TO PEOPLE. She's also absent-minded herself.
Barring that, Earth sector seems a good choice. While she is not taciturn and grumpy, she is drawn to those that are.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person (Prose):
Aracely hadn't gotten a chance to see much of New York when she had been there previously with Kaine. It didn't stop her from learning all the words to "Why Should I Worry?" by Billy Joel. Most people would have gone for "New York State of Mind", but she preferred this song's energy. She hadn't needed to lift the lyrics from someone's head, as it turned out, because the only part she ever sang was the woo-hoo-woo-hoo-hoos. They were fun.
"Please tell me you didn't just teleport the entire mountain to New York City." Justice had been incredulous, Speedball thought it was funny. Poor Jake Waffles had seemed sorry that he hadn't known where Disneyland was.
Aracely was sad that it wasn't Disneyland either, but New York City was still exciting. Maybe her new friends liked sightseeing more than Kaine. Ooh, they could take their first team photo on the torch of the Statue of Liberty! They should probably tell the Avengers about the robots, while they're in town.
But then she wasn't in Mount Wungadore anymore. She wasn't even standing - she was lateral and underwater and scarily headblind, for the first time in weeks. She may have grabbed the first kidnapper she saw and tried to drown them. It didn't go well. She needed Kaine to show her how to do things like that properly, so that she didn't wind up in a hold. That was fine this time. After all, they were shouting explanations at her and needed her help. Next time might be different.
When everyone was more restrained and less sopping wet, there had been a dull explanation from people who might have answered her first interrupting question (what's the turtle's name?), but had no time for her 13th and 14th (how do we know his name if we can't say it? and where are my friends, part five: if you need heroes why didn't you take all of us when we were in the same room?). It was really hard to pay attention with this song stuck in her head and to keep from singing it under her breathe, but she got the jist of it. Apparently, the kedan weren't fans of Billy Joel or possibly her singing voice, and she soon found herself outside an apartment building, waving goodbye to the departing, beleaguered creatures.
"Woo-hoo-woo-hoo-hoo," she sang quietly as she walked down the street in the opposite direction. Aracely's head was buzzy, like her powers were trying to tune back in. She could almost feel Kaine. He had to be around here somewhere. If she was going to go to war, she hoped they weren't too stupid to not bring her champion. "I'm streetwise. I can improvise."
Network:
[There is a girl seated in a cafe at a console. Her age is indeterminate under a full-faced green mask and blue hood, but the body language reads teenager. If she's feeling out of place in public donning full superhero regalia, she is the greatest actress in the world with a smile that gives Julia Roberts' a run for its money.
Then, she begins to speak, and it's impossible for someone to fake this level of energy. ]
Hi!! I'm Hummingbird! Is this working? We didn't have a computer in Houston.
If anyone had anything damaged by the fuzzy man-spider with all the red eyes that is definitely not Spider-Man, I'll make sure it gets fixed or paid for. I'm one of the New Warriors. Do you have those here? It means I'm one of the good guys. If nothing got wrecked, um. Go team!
[With the messy stuff thus taken care of, Aracely can move onto more pressing matters.]
Soooooo I've never been to space before! Does this happen a lot? Does this count as space? I should have asked Sam more about it. I've been on a teleporting mountain, but I don't think that's why I'm here.
It's been a long day. One of the cute baby turtles told me my costume is pretty. That helped - talking turtles are so much nicer than talking coyotes. I really need cucumbers. Also, that goo stuff that they smear all over your face when you're getting a facial. If anyone has the number of a good masseuse, let me know. That's always helped me relax.
Bye!
Name: Marie
Age: If I double my age, I can sing "Bosum Buddies" from Mame without appearing too young. (I am over 18).
Contact: seemarierun at plurk
Other Characters Played: Bart Allen |
backinakidflashCharacter Information:
Name: María Aracely Josefina Penalba de las Heras (Aracely Penalba is what's generally used/said), alias Angela María Lopez, codename Hummingbird
Canon: Marvel Comics 616
Canon Point: The end of New Warriors v. 5 #5. Aracely has requested they go to Disneyland, however the dog piloting Mount Wundagore does not know where that is.
Age: 15-16
Reference Links:
http://marvel.wikia.com/Mar%C3%ADa_Aracely_Penalba_%28Earth-616%29
Setting:
The Marvel 616 universe is meant to be much like the world that we know, and it is nearly always set in the present day. There is nothing that exists in our world that does not exist in 616. However, there are numerous additions to it. The primary one is that super-humans, superheroes, and super-villains exist. Others are less noticeable, such as the fictional country Genosha (detailed further down) or the American government's spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and its Canadian counterpart Department K, both of which tend to be the government's way of working with or against super-humans.
These super-humans have supernatural abilities, ranging from the expected flight and super strength combination to the absurd, like having a digestive tract comprised of two sentient maggots. They have come about these abilities in various ways.
First, there are the aliens. The Skrull and Kree are two of the more famous; these races are constantly at war with each other. Skrulls, at one point, took a fancy to impersonating super-humans of Earth in an attempt to take over the world. It didn't work. There was a Kree Captain Marvel though, and there have been good Skrulls too.
Until several years ago, the most common way to find oneself with a superpower was to have been born a mutant, a human with an "X-gene." While some physical mutations caused by this gene appear at birth, most mutants first realize their status during puberty while under great stress. It has been theorized that it is the nature of this stressor that defines the actual abilities granted by the X-gene. A girl whose best friend is in a coma receives telepathy; a boy who was gravely injured is granted a healing factor. This first use of power, or manifestation, can be violent and uncontrolled.
The mutant population was nearly obliterated several years ago on a day called "M-Day". A handful (definitely less than 100, probably less than 50) of people know the full and complete truth of what happened, but Aracely is confirmed to not be one of them. She does know that most of them seem to live at Xavier's school in New York, that the other telepaths there hate her because her head hurts them, that she likes most of the mutants that she's met, and that she is not allowed to attend the school.
The "mutant replacement" [let's be real, Marvel Editorial, that's what it is] are the Inhumans. They are "normal" folks who were not born with a genetic difference, but wound up with powers due to exposure to the Terrigen Mists, a process known as terregenesis. Millions of years ago, the Kree experimented on early humans, creating the genetically superior race, some with powers, that became known as the Inhumans. Though the Kree abandoned the project, the Inhumans themselves continued it through further experimentation with selective breeding and terregenesis. At some point, these Inhumans said "fuck it" and moved to the moon. Small tribes of the original Inhumans remained a part of the greater world, without knowing their origins, and bred with humans to create hidden hybrids (I think. Hybrids were there, okay? #comics). When the Terrigen Mist was released worldwide in a ridiculous plot, these hybrids then developed powers. Mark Sim (Haechi), one of Aracely's possible new teammates, is one of these new Inhumans.
Due to incidents like "destroying several city blocks" and the bad PR that follows them everywhere, mutants are not much loved by the general populace of the world, because "blah blah blah the world hates and fears what it doesn't understand." Mutants are hated to the point of 'average' humans forming multiple, violent, anti-mutant organizations that are willing to do anything to drain the X-gene from the gene pool. Inhumans, too, are generally looked at with the same eyes as mutants, although there isn't decades of canon to prove that this is a permanent trend. It's slightly irrational, as some of the other ways to become a hero turn out rather beloved heroes, but that's how it works.
As for the rest of the super-humans, some were experimented on, like Captain America. Many were drenched in radioactive rays/materials/bug bites, like the Hulk, Speedball, and Spider-Man, and others are magically attuned or demigods, like Aracely herself. Still more can't claim the abilities as their own, having instead used their technological genius to create gadgets that let them fly or shoot missiles or ray beams, as her teammate Sun Girl does.
Spider-Man, though Aracely has never met the man himself, needs to be briefly detailed. Once upon a time, there was a geeky teenager named Peter Parker. He was bitten by a radioactive spider at a science exhibit and was gifted with superpowers. Peter selfishly did not immediately sacrifice his life for the greater good, because he was a kid and did not listen when his Uncle Ben said trite bullshit like "with great power comes great responsibility." Then Uncle Ben died, and Peter has tormented himself with guilt and super-heroing ever since.
Spider-Man was one of the first (and most famous) of the superheroes running around New York City. He has accrued quite a varied rogues gallery of genius mad scientists, angry bosses, and super-powered thugs. Of note to this app is a crazy, murdering geneticist named Miles Warren, who is known by the supervillain name "the Jackal." He decided that the best way to defeat Spider-man was by cloning him and made multiple attempts at it.
The first "viable" clone became the man known as Kaine (or Kaine Parker, depending on who you're asking). Kaine did not inherit Peter's intellect and was physically scarred. Considering him a failed experiment, the Jackal threw him out in the bio-waste bin. But life will out, and Kaine escaped to become a serial killer and Spidey-rogue. Eventually, through the interventions of others, Kaine developed something of a (gasp!) conscious and decided what he really wanted to do was lie on a beach in Mexico for the rest of his life. On the way there, he stumbled on several million dollars in cash and a freight container with dozens of dead bodies. There was one lone survivor: Aracely.
It completely derailed his trip. He stayed in Houston to make sure that she would be okay, continued staying when her hospital was attacked, and then kidnapped her from the hospital when the doctor, Donald Meland, informed him that she would be deported from the United States back to Mexico - where there seemed to be people waiting to kill her. He continued to stay in Houston and look after her, in an effort to give her the second chance at life that he had so desperately wanted. He became the perfect hero for Houston, rough around the edges, liable to cursing out the people he saves for being stupid, but willing to do what was needed to be done. When the world bottomed out on him, he finally took off to Mexico - with Aracely in tow.
Unlike Kaine, most heroes don't operate completely solo. There are a lot of teams running around the universe. Mutants tend to run with the X-Men (or any of the umpteen teams that start with X-) who fight on behalf of mutants - or fight against ones that sought to use their powers for evil. The do-gooding of the rest of the super-humans tend to gravitate to the more legally recognized, government-chartered Avengers. The Avengers exists to fight off huge, world-threatening Bad Guys that none of them could take on their own. There are always several independent groups floating around the 616-verse. Aracely recently has fallen in with one of the more notorious ones: the New Warriors.
The New Warriors have been formed and reformed several times in canon, but there are a few constants: they have no idea what they're doing. Mistakes are made. The biggest 'mistake' lead to a supervillian blowing up with enough force to knock down several hundred square yards of buildings in Stamford, CT, killing 612 civilians in the process. The fallout from that day lead to the Registration Act and the entire Civil War crossover. The New Warriors went from being that vaguely clueless New York teenager team to notorious.
This incarnation isn't even a fully fledged team yet, as three members want to go home and a fourth is on a quest of her own. The only people who seem committed to forming a team are the two original New Warriors, Justice and Speedball, and Aracely herself. It's more of a team-up at the moment, but as far as she is concerned, it is a superhero team and she is a superhero now. Therefore, her teammates are as follows:
Kaine/Scarlet Spider: He saved her life, quite literally, rescuing her when she had been intentionally left to die, and he has become her de facto guardian. She has him wrapped around her little finger.
Vance Astrovik/Justice: One of the two original New Warriors making up this team, he is the leader by right (and because no one else wants the job). A former Avengers, he generally has his head screwed on straight.
Robbie Baldwin/Speedball: The other veteran New Warrior and the lone survivor of the squad that was involved in Stamford, Robbie appears to be doing his best to act like the past couple of years never happened. She has a crush on him. He most likely does not have his head on straight.
Faira sar Namora/Water Snake: A mysterious Atlantean who is on a quest to find a missing/dead/reincarnated member of the royal family that she happens to be a dead ringer for. She is not Namorita. Head straightness: doubtful.
Mark Sim/Haechi: An American teen who became an Inhuman when the world was exposed to Terrigen Mists. He was in the right place at the right time to save Sun Girl, and the wrong place at the wrong time to continue a normal life. He was drug into this mess because his energy-eating ability was too useful in the fight.
Selah Burke/Sun Girl: Daughter of the supervillain Lightmaster (although she is obfuscating her origin story to them), Selah stole her father's tech to become a superhero after meeting Spider-man.
Personality:
What is someone like when you strip them of all but the freshest of memories? If Aracely is someone to judge by, they're you're stereotypical teenagers. Aracely has almost no memories before arriving in Houston. The one that she has is about two days before then, and it's debatable if it's even real as Aracely has both dreams and waking visions that seemingly based in her demigod nature.
In effect, Aracely is a blank slate at the start of her canon. There are a lot of things that a normal person her age would know (for instance, what a rodeo is), and she does not. She gleans information from the minds of those around her and watches a lot of TV, which seems to help. She's also incredibly curious and and will pepper people with rapid fire questions about whatever catches her attention - whatever it is. She is slightly unfocused and almost dreamy about everything, meaning that she can be vague and random and absent-minded. Her creator (and sole author) has said that she doesn't remember much of her days.
Aracely has no filter. Without life experiences, she doesn't understand that there are things one does not bring up in a group. She asked Speedball if he still cuts himself at a restaurant in front of teammates. She always speaks her mind, loudly and firmly. If she has a thought, you'll know. If you don't like it, you'll know more. She doesn't care if you're built like a Mac truck either. And don't curse at her, she will get a dollar in her swear jar. It can be a detriment, because she does seem to be able to read a situation very well. For instance, she is the one who informs Kaine that Annabelle has feelings for him (although this might be her abusing her power).
Despite her bluntness, she's pleasant and can be handled in a conversation. Providing her an answer (the more to-the-point the better) may temporarily shut her up. It's better to distract her. She is inherently simple, for lack of a better way to put it. She doesn't over-think things, her emotions are young and instantaneous. Her immediate latching onto Kaine as her savior/big brother/mentor speaks to this, as does her overwhelming glee to see a rodeo (she found out what they were the day before) and her declaring that she was in love with Speedball (she knew him for a week, and that's pushing it. She also might not know his name but what are these details when you're 16 and clueless).
It bothers her, to an extent, that she doesn't remember her past, but Aracely lives in-the-moment for most of the day. She isn't horribly scarred by the trauma of waking up in a freight container in Houston, buried under dead bodies. This isn't to say that it doesn't bother her. She occasionally gets upset about it, has nightmares and flashbacks, but, all in all, it's not that bad given that she woke up in a pile of dead people. It does affect her actions. The first time she came to in the hotel suite, she tried to attack Kaine's newfound friend, Annabelle, as she was afraid that someone had come to kill her. She succeeded in clocking Kaine with a lamp.
She doesn't scare easily at all - and she doesn't let fear stop her when she feels it. Fresh from her initial rescue, she didn't stay hidden when a fiery assassin threatened her doctor. There wasn't anything she could do at the time, and she did beg to be left alone, but she didn't cower silently and let someone else die in her place. She later doesn't hesitate to join into the fight against a robbery gang of heavily armed Santas.
There can be a ruthless streak to her, as well. When she was being chased by werewolves, she lead them into a fight with a gun-toting gang, without concern for the gang members. In fact, there was quite a nasty little smile on her face when it worked, as if to say "now you're in for it."
What is she scared of? Losing Kaine, either to abandonment or to the Other. Aracely can be cunningly manipulative. She doesn't want Kaine to leave her, viewing him as her protector even before her dreams label him her champion. She finds ways to increase the odds of him staying in Houston without using her powers and without letting him know. When he transforms to the Other, she tries at first to convince herself that he is still in there; not running even when she probes his mind and finds no humanity left. Instead, she stays and pleads for him to come back, thinking of how now is when Kaine should be running in to save her. When he snaps out of it, she doesn't blame or judge him for what happened. She doesn't see someone's "bad" side as negating the proven good in them.
She's protective of Kaine and her friends. That gang of armed Santas were holding their friend Annabelle hostage and another friend, police officer Wally Layton, was there as well. There was no way she was staying out of it. It's his being prone to death that spurs her into becoming a hero. Even though her first "mission" is accompanying him to Xavier's school for mutants to help him assassinate Wolverine. Kaine needs her help, OK? He has her loyalty, even if he doesn't completely want it.
She does treat superhero-ism with her standard naïveté though, making her own costume and insisting on him calling her Hummingbird. It continues into New Warriors, jumping up and down and shouting "Yay!", shrieking about how they're going to be superheroes in the middle of a fight. She thinks it's fantastic and doesn't understand why the rest of them aren't nearly as excited.
Hero-related things aside, her life is relaxed. Aracely doesn't go to school, being that she's an illegal citizen prone to floating upside down and speaking in a weird voice and reading people's minds. Oh, and she lives in a hotel with a guy 10 years older than her that she isn't related to. She likes rodeos and barbecue and big blue hoodies. She enjoys watching TV and eating lots and lots of bad-for-you food in the messiest way possible. Her favorite hobby is talking. She's very playful, even when she's using her powers - she has made people afraid of spiders and guns and made them love puppies. Because she can.
Appearance:
Out of costume and In costume
Abilities:
She has been called both a telepath and an empath. She can read people's thoughts and emotions and even glean information like favorite colors and learn the languages that they speak instantly. Her specialty is fears, though, and she can force people to be afraid. When she intends to use this power, she usually uses a vocal cue ("It's okay to be scared" or something similar); however, she has also unintentionally projected her own fears onto bystanders. Her mind seems to have a psionic defense/attack, as other experienced telepaths (like the Stepford Cuckoos) were shown to be in great distress after trying to read her mind, and Aracely didn't know why.
While she has some defenses, she doesn't seem to be very good at ignoring other people's thoughts ("I can't sleep with all your not caring"). She is excessive with her delving into others' heads, but it doesn't seem like it's entirely her fault - she doesn't know how to keep them out of hers. While she was running from the werewolves, her actions mimicked those of Kaine's, who was still bring attacked. Similarly, the words and actions of people she ran passed matched her own.
"Floating" - this is what she calls it, as her power of flight is usually depicted simply hovering. She can hover several feet off the ground and remain steady. Presumably she doesn't have much in the way of propulsion, or has only begun to figure that part out. She has only recently been shown getting anywhere with it (and carrying a person, no less) - so presumably she is making headway there. I'm going with a very basic sort of flight.
A brief sidenote on the canonically not-quite explained Aztec religions:
I can't decide whether this should be in personality or setting or here. Aracely has been declared a demigod in narrative boxes and by the agents of the High Evolutionary. She has visions of Aztlán, the legendary home of the Aztec people, where she sees a talking coyote and the (also talking) bodies of what she believes are her dead parents. She is told repeatedly that she is the left-handed Hummingbird (Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war) and that Mictlan (the underworld) is rising (or will rise). According to the Aztec mythos, we are currently in the 5th world creation (the previous four have ended), and she is told that the fifth creation is ending. In addition, she's been told that either she goes to Aztlán and dies or else everyone will die. Given that Aztec creation stories involve gods sacrificing themselves and that Dr. McCoy gets weird results on a brain scan, it would seem that Aracely's powers are the results of being a demigod.
Inventory:
Her superhero uniform!!
Suitability:
She's the reincarnation of the Aztec god of war, human sacrifice, and the sun (or else just occasionally possessed by him). She's got this.
Seriously though, Aracely is a tough cookie who's been through a lot and come out relatively unscathed. She doesn't back down from the scary stuff and takes a strange glee in seeing/participating in fights.
Suite:
WOOD! OMG THEY LIVE IN TREEHOUSES I WANT A TREEHOUSE I CAN FLOAT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW I CAN FLOAT TO MY ROOM I CAN LEAN OUT THE WINDOWS AND WAVE TO PEOPLE. She's also absent-minded herself.
Barring that, Earth sector seems a good choice. While she is not taciturn and grumpy, she is drawn to those that are.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person (Prose):
Aracely hadn't gotten a chance to see much of New York when she had been there previously with Kaine. It didn't stop her from learning all the words to "Why Should I Worry?" by Billy Joel. Most people would have gone for "New York State of Mind", but she preferred this song's energy. She hadn't needed to lift the lyrics from someone's head, as it turned out, because the only part she ever sang was the woo-hoo-woo-hoo-hoos. They were fun.
"Please tell me you didn't just teleport the entire mountain to New York City." Justice had been incredulous, Speedball thought it was funny. Poor Jake Waffles had seemed sorry that he hadn't known where Disneyland was.
Aracely was sad that it wasn't Disneyland either, but New York City was still exciting. Maybe her new friends liked sightseeing more than Kaine. Ooh, they could take their first team photo on the torch of the Statue of Liberty! They should probably tell the Avengers about the robots, while they're in town.
But then she wasn't in Mount Wungadore anymore. She wasn't even standing - she was lateral and underwater and scarily headblind, for the first time in weeks. She may have grabbed the first kidnapper she saw and tried to drown them. It didn't go well. She needed Kaine to show her how to do things like that properly, so that she didn't wind up in a hold. That was fine this time. After all, they were shouting explanations at her and needed her help. Next time might be different.
When everyone was more restrained and less sopping wet, there had been a dull explanation from people who might have answered her first interrupting question (what's the turtle's name?), but had no time for her 13th and 14th (how do we know his name if we can't say it? and where are my friends, part five: if you need heroes why didn't you take all of us when we were in the same room?). It was really hard to pay attention with this song stuck in her head and to keep from singing it under her breathe, but she got the jist of it. Apparently, the kedan weren't fans of Billy Joel or possibly her singing voice, and she soon found herself outside an apartment building, waving goodbye to the departing, beleaguered creatures.
"Woo-hoo-woo-hoo-hoo," she sang quietly as she walked down the street in the opposite direction. Aracely's head was buzzy, like her powers were trying to tune back in. She could almost feel Kaine. He had to be around here somewhere. If she was going to go to war, she hoped they weren't too stupid to not bring her champion. "I'm streetwise. I can improvise."
Network:
[There is a girl seated in a cafe at a console. Her age is indeterminate under a full-faced green mask and blue hood, but the body language reads teenager. If she's feeling out of place in public donning full superhero regalia, she is the greatest actress in the world with a smile that gives Julia Roberts' a run for its money.
Then, she begins to speak, and it's impossible for someone to fake this level of energy. ]
Hi!! I'm Hummingbird! Is this working? We didn't have a computer in Houston.
If anyone had anything damaged by the fuzzy man-spider with all the red eyes that is definitely not Spider-Man, I'll make sure it gets fixed or paid for. I'm one of the New Warriors. Do you have those here? It means I'm one of the good guys. If nothing got wrecked, um. Go team!
[With the messy stuff thus taken care of, Aracely can move onto more pressing matters.]
Soooooo I've never been to space before! Does this happen a lot? Does this count as space? I should have asked Sam more about it. I've been on a teleporting mountain, but I don't think that's why I'm here.
It's been a long day. One of the cute baby turtles told me my costume is pretty. That helped - talking turtles are so much nicer than talking coyotes. I really need cucumbers. Also, that goo stuff that they smear all over your face when you're getting a facial. If anyone has the number of a good masseuse, let me know. That's always helped me relax.
Bye!
