Codename: Skim (Hero)
Real name: Sandra Kim
Aliases: None Currently
Nationality: Asian American
Age: 19
Height: 5’ 7”
Weight: 135 lbs.
History/Bio: Sandra is a super-intelligent teenager. Her father, Jae Kim, was a brilliant scientist and engineer working on a revolutionary new anti-gravity technology for the company known as ANTI. One night in his lab, the anti-gravity generator Jae is working on overloads and destroys his lab, and presumably Jae as well; he is pronounced dead but his body is never found. Sandra is convinced that there is a cover up. She investigates the circumstances surrounding the accident and using her own genius level intellect and the knowledge that her Jae passed on to her, constructs a costume that utilizes the anti-gravity tech created by her father as a mode of transport and as an offensive weapon. Using her newly crafted suit, her father’s technology, her own intelligence and know-how, and accompanied by her robot drone companion, “Catsai”, she vows to solve the mystery surrounding her father's death.
Physical Description: At nineteen years old, Skim is at her prime physically, if not mentally as well. On the taller side for females her age, she has a trim, strong, alethic dancer build (and in fact, has taken many years of dance prior to her father’s accident) and uses dancers' moves as an initial “go to” in terms of combat.
Emotional Description: Sandra has always been a little unusual by the standards of her peers. Hyper-intelligent and physically skilled, she’s the typical overachiever in school and sports, but has never received the usual accolades that generally go along with those achievements. Instead, she’s been teased and ostracized because she is so much better at these things than everyone else her age. Appellations like “Freak”, “Weirdo”, “Alien”, and “Do-Gooder” have often been attributed to her by her jealous peers, and Sandra has taken these to heart without letting it show externally. Her drive has always been to make her father, constantly emotionally distant due to his dedication to his work and the loss of his wife, proud and so Sandra shrugs off the names and the insults and keeps trying harder. Ultimately, this has combined with a sense of justification to make her rather judgmental and harsh to others that she considers "less than". This, in turn, amplifies her tendency to be a perfectionist, a quality that is not necessarily always positive, but one that will come strongly into play as she tries to piece together the clues of her father’s accident, as well as becoming a hesitant hero.
Powers/Skills: Natively, Skim has no superpowers of her own, but while wearing the suit, she can access all of its primary functions: anti-gravity discs and stabilizers. These two functions can be combined in a wide array to create any number of powers, only a few of which Skim currently comprehends. Skim can fly utilizing the anti-gravity discs in the suit’s feet, but she must combine these powers with the suit’s stabilizers (the lit areas of the suit), which aid in overall equilibrium while in flight. The anti-gravity discs can also be attached to the arms of her suit, becoming projectiles when launched. These projectiles can also return and reattach to the suit automatically. Combining the functions of both the discs and the projectiles, Skim can extend the anti-gravity field outward, effectively creating any number of effects from a shield to ward off blows or incoming missles to an effect much like an anti-gravity airbag that can cushion her from falls or blows. In extreme or emergency cases, the suit seems to have a built-in and automatic function that Skim does not wholly understand or control wherein it emits a massive anti-gravity pulse, which negates all effects of normal gravity around her within a certain range. This pulse effect also drains the suit’s power, rendering it nearly useless for a span of time.
Personally, Skim possesses hyper-intelligence and extreme athletic abilities and displays a true talent for engineering, the latter of which she uses to repair, maintain and upgrade the tech she utilizes as needed.
Favored Weapon: Skim does not have a favored weapon as of yet, because she is still learning how to use the technology she engineered into her suit. She has found a particular tactic that she tends to gravitate to, however. Initially, she uses the suit’s powers to create an anti-gravity field beneath her target, causing it to float and effectively making it weightless and immediately follows that up with a blast of heavy grav, flinging her opponent away from combat like a frisbee.
Weakness(es): Currently, Skim’s greatest weakness is her inexperience and her naivety. Deep down, Sandra is a very idealistic and altruistic person who believes that all people are basically good at heart. As such, she approaches every situation with this in mind. This is what leads her to not mask her identity, for instance, because in her mind, once she solves the mystery of her father’s death/disappearance, she’ll return to her normal, civilian life. Also, she does not see a reason for training with her new “powers” because in her core, this is not a new profession she’s choosing, but merely a tool she’s utilizing to solve her current, most pressing problem. Slowly, her role as a hero will begin to dawn on her, however, and she will begin to take her hero status more seriously.
Character Core:
- SPINE (this is the fundamental thing that continually drives the character forward):
- To discover the truth behind her father’s disappearance.
- WANT (this is what the character deeply desires, either subconsciously or consciously):
- To make her father proud.
- NEED (this is what the character needs, whether they’re aware of it or not):
- To realize that she is a hero that the world needs.
Elements We Can Play To:
- Skim has the “reluctant or hesitant hero”: we can have lots of fun with this storyline as we craft stories about trying to learn how to control her new powers and abilities, while also wondering why they even matter.
- Skim as the overachiever: this will allow us to identify with many folks in our target demographic, as many of our readers will resonate with being this type of individual. Also, the opportunity to tell stories with a hero who always tries to do everything without a mistake should provide plenty of story fodder.
- Skim as a dancer: this could be a pretty cool card to play, as I cannot recall if I’ve ever seen a hero that bases their combat moves on dance moves. We could draw from all sorts of different dances here, from ballet to breakdancing, so this could be visually striking as well. Further, a lot of young ladies would likely identify with this very common element of our hero, which might help build a readership.
Questions to Keep Asking:
Can we identify with Skim?
Can we learn from Skim?
Do we have a compelling reason to follow Skim?
Do we believe that Skim deserves to win?
Are Skim’s stakes primal and do those stakes ring true to us?
Secrets:Skim is absolutely correct in that her father’s disappearance has a more sinister source. After a disagreement over the ownership of the revolutionary, world-altering anti-grav technology, Isamu Noguchi, ANTI’s founder decided that it would be best if Jae perished in a terrible industrial accident. This would eliminate a potential lawsuit that he knew he would lose as well as firmly land the new tech firmly into his hands. However, the “accident” did not go off quite as planned. Isamu’s daughter, Chien, also known as the villain Spook, attempting to paralyze the scientist, phased through Jae at a critical moment in the anti-gravity experiment he was conducting. Spook’s intangibility powers coupled with the anti-gravity emissions in an unprecedented manner, pushing Jae slightly out of phase with our universe. Jae is still alive and still within the laboratory, but he now exists in a strange spirit-like state, wavering in and out of consciousness. Eventually, he will become known as the hero Eidolon, who will operate as an intangible nexus of knowledge and research for good aligned heroes within the Craig Payne universe.
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Author's Note: I've begun collaborating with Craig Payne, an artist I met via Deviantart who has a host of awesome, original characters. I grok on the character designs, so Craig and I have teamed up to begin building a world for these characters. I'll be archiving the data here and creating a bit of a "World Index". Skim is the first of many to come. Feel free to post any ideas you might have for a cool world name...
Skim created by Craig Payne, Developed by Brannon Hollingsworth.
All text above Copyright © 2020 Brannon Hollingsworth.
