Appearance: Seventeen-year-old Maggie is hardly the most intimidating person out there, short for her age and skinny to boot; her hoodie practically swallows her whole, sleeves long enough to cover up her hands and hat pulled down to cover as much of her head and face as possible. Pale and unhealthy, with no real way to clean herself up, she's the very image of a girl that just wants to avoid being seen.
Name: Maggie Sinclair
Cape Name: Magnum Opus
Theme Song: Aspects
High Concept: The strongest weakling
Trouble: Scared to take the reins
Origin: It's lonely at the top
Growth: No-one looks behind closed doors
Adventure: I'd rather wish myself away
Bio
Personality: As is the case with a lot of capes, Mag can be a little... odd. Skittish as they come, with enough trust issues to give even the most paranoid gang leader a run for their money, it's a little difficult to get her to come out of her shell. Even the friendliest of capes will be met with silence and wariness on first greeting, and anyone more hostile isn't likely to get a word from her, though she's easily intimidated into listening to basically everyone.
Perhaps as a result of her own weakness, she seems to treat everything and everyone with a sense of vague suspicion. When alone, however, she appears to interact with her summoned minions in a way that appears almost familial, treating them as friends rather than living pictures. The behaviour is probably at least a little unhealthy, but good luck getting her to pay attention when you say that.
Despite her power having enormous potential, Mag herself seems afraid of testing her limits, only using it to its full extent - or at all - when pushed. While she might be a useful ally at some point, right now she's more frustrating to deal with than anything else. Unless she's backed into a corner, the girl is a liability. In the hands of almost anyone else, used properly, the timid girl's power could be one of the most formidable around.
But with her wielding it, it just leaves people wondering what might have been.
History: It's a fairly common thing, really - this idea that all the best artists draw from some sort of pain. Inner, outer, the mind or the body... there's always something there, some deep darkness from which true art might spring. For her first few years, Mag never understood that theory. She just wanted to draw, to paint, to
create, and devoted every second to that task. Almost obsessively, really, though the hours of practice certainly showed.
Not that she was producing masterpieces quite yet, but her art was certainly impressive for her age - the girl was, by all accounts, a prodigy. It wasn't too long before she started winning competitions, bringing in prizes, and showing the potential to be a genuinely fantastic artist.
But then, people are always eager to seize hold of potential. And as we all know, the best way to get someone to reach their potential is to force them into reaching it by whatever means necessary. No friends outside of school, no time to herself - not when that time could be dedicated to improvement. And for a while, she followed along, easy to terrorise and force into doing what she was told, even as the isolation grew and her classmates became more and more distant, jealous and spiteful words pricking at her ears everywhere she went.
Such things change with maturity however, and like many the child of an overbearing parent before her, Mag developed a rebellious streak as she grew older. Sick of the never being good enough, of being treated as some kind of art factory rather than a person, of never having anyone at all to talk to or trust. And of course, like any reasonable parents, her mother and father had a long civil discussion with her and worked out all their differences.
...Yeah, right.
Not really, of course. Instead, they clamped down harder than ever before, every aspect of her life being meticulously controlled - culminating in the day that she came home and found nothing. Every possession, every method of communication, every distraction, was gone. Isolation, with nothing to do except draw, picture after picture.
As the door locked behind her, the girl finally reached a breaking point. And as she sat, tears running down her face, she watched as a black cat emerged from the canvas, purring as it settled in her lap. It wasn't
fair, it wasn't funny, and she didn't want anything to do with it. In her mind it seemed that the creature was taunting her from where it sat, so peaceful, so tranquil, so comforting. And so very fake.
A few weeks later, with no sign of a light at the end of the tunnel, she finally got sick of it. After running away from home with a book full of drawings and as much cash as she could steal without being noticed, she made her way to Boston, where she's been scraping by - mostly through petty crimes and shoplifting without any powers involved. Passing her time with street art, the girl has been making an attempt to completely forget about her abilities.
But with rising tensions in the city, gang wars inflamed, and threats around every corner, it's not clear how long that'll last.
Abilities
Rating: Master (7)
Mag has the ability to breathe new life into works of art - all too literally. Any drawing, sketch, or painting that she touches can be brought to life and kept at her beck and call. The minions will take commands from her, though when she isn't directly controlling them they appear sentient and act of their own free will. Initial summoning does require contact with the art, but after that the creatures can be directed by her thoughts as she sees fit. Small drawings can be magnified in size somewhat if she chooses, though she can't make the summoned creature any larger than the real thing would be.
The creations themselves have a slightly unreal quality, retaining the appearance of whatever was used to draw them. She's never encountered a hard limit on how many she can summon at a time, but if she doesn't already have a minion present she's completely vulnerable without her sketchbook or some other drawing at hand. Beyond that, if a creature is destroyed she has to wait for at least a day or two before it can be summoned again.
