WIP sheet so that I can respond to Shwiggity. And it's done!
Age: 13
Nationality: America, Land of the Free! Specifically, the city of New York in the state of New York.
Rank: 44
Appearance: One could imagine Mark would be a fairly normal guy, if not for his Quirk. One could imagine he'd be fairly light-skinned, and one can tell regardless that he has brown hair on his head, kept short enough to stay out of his eyes, and a fairly decent figure about five feet in height with, if one were to witness them, particularly well-built back muscles for his age. However, if one were not aware of who he was, the first idea of what he might look like would come from his regular shirts, which not only have an extra pair of sleeves underneath the usuals, but two large slits up the back, as if to allow for wings to pass through... and perhaps something else beneath those.
Costume: Things only get stranger as one witnesses his costume. Black jeans are simple enough a covering for his lower half, but the upper half could easily be mistaken for part of a knight's plate armour, albeit crafted from titanium and a padded leather lining with a peculiar metallic blue coat of paint over top, alongside further reinforcement of all six limbs - six, as that is the only explanation for the extra arm sleeves and gauntlets. The same slits from before are also present on the back of the breastplate, but part of it is composed of two solid metallic orb-like structures, complete with holes letting air in, as if to allow two small-ish objects to nestle inside with room to freely move about. Most strange is the two-piece helm - the upper half of which seems to be comprised mostly of black-tinted bullet-resistant plastic, solid enough to deflect quite firm strikes, yet covering the majority of the wearer's head with room to spare, especially over the face; and the lower half a facemask of the same metallic blue-coated titanium covering mouth and nose both, strapping on round the back of the wearer's head, but allowing room for... a large metal spike? Hollow, but clearly very sharp... what the hell does the person wearing this need that for?!
Personality: Mark's early life has not been generally easy, and consequently, he developed into a very aggressive person to protect himself. This has not generally helped him to make friends, unsubtle as he is, and in fact it has led to a great deal of problems actually integrating into society over time, to the point of requiring specialised support as a child to acclimate and be somewhat more social in general. He is still prone to sullenness and grudge-holding alike, and might bite your head off with a long rant about how much you suck if you intentionally upset him, but he's at least not likely to hit you with an insult just because you made a comment about his eyes.
That being said, underneath this outer layer of anger is a heavy dose of legitimate loneliness. He struggles to let people in even when he isn't taking out his frustration on them, and has had few acquaintances and even fewer friends in his thirteen years of life. Consequently, his hobbies tend to be solo in nature - reading both fiction and non-fiction, computer games, flying practice, and the occasional piece of short fiction, albeit with the level of writing quality one might expect of a thirteen-year-old - but this need to be legitimised has also helped fuel a degree of geniality to those who haven't upset him, and indeed a tendency to help those in need at the drop of a hat. Unusually, he's also gained a degree of knowledge about forging techniques, thanks to circumstances that arose just prior to his acceptance into New Heights.
History: As already stated, Mark's early life has not been generally easy. His father's Quirk, a benign little transformation number he called Bluebottle, mixed with his mother's needle-producing Quirk to produce a setup that seemed only marginally different from the former, save that Mark himself was born looking like a fly, instead of simply transforming into one. The change from Transformation to Mutant rather set the course of Mark's life to be highly negative: despite his best efforts and quite significant smarts, he was often bullied in elementary school, with few people willing to talk to him much, and only two other Mutants he could even call friends - and even with them, his behaviour and reputation steadily degraded until they split away for their own sakes when he was about eight.
It was also around this time he first suspected and, with all the gumption of an angry fly child, voiced his concerns that even his parents didn't really love him or even like him. Evidently, loving as they actually were, this was conclusive evidence to them that he needed some form of long-term support, and shortly after, he began seeing a counsellor with quite a positive track record. Between education and therapy sessions, as well as a brief period of time Mark spent on adderall that ended when his parents insisted it was ill-advised, Mark also attended a number of regularly-scheduled groups designed for those living in unfortunate circumstances - say, being part of an impoverished family, or looking like a fly person. Despite everything, these groups did actually help him somewhat, and whilst he never exactly made friends with anybody in them, he could at least talk to them every week or so.
It was one of those children that sparked something resembling interest in hero work - they, naturally, were convinced they'd become a hero, and went on at length about how they'd use their power and how they'd train it every day to get the spot they wanted. Something about that appealed greatly to him - maybe he'd even be liked by people, if he saved them! After getting his therapist's approval, and his parent's encouragement, he began to practice using his powers on a regular basis - part of which was figuring out what flies could do to begin with, before practicing to make proper use of them, including time spent on karate as a martial art, which he excelled in with his enhanced and increasingly-potent precision and slowed temporal perception allowing him to mimic stances and target weak points with ease. In particular, three years were spent furiously flapping his wings on a regular basis, seeming to make little to no progress beyond hovering, only to suddenly take off several feet one morning before school, as it transpired his wing muscles had grown exceptionally strong in the process of all that practice. This power was promptly used to show off in front of one of his bullies, and then to kick said bully in the face for years of humiliation. He maintains to this day that the detention was entirely worth it, even as he recognises the "cool factor" didn't make him any further friends.
Nonetheless, as he grew closer to the typical acceptance age for hero training schools, his father used his connections in construction to get Mark working alongside a local craftsman, helping to forge himself an outfit to enter into heroics with: lightweight, yet tough enough to protect him, and especially to ensure his most important body parts were shielded without being hindered to the greatest possible extent. Both parents also worked with him to start putting applications into as many hero schools as they could, and it was, perhaps, a great deal of good luck that one of those which confirmed his acceptance was within the United States, specifically Hawaii - sun, sand, high-quality education, exclusivity, and he didn't even need a Visa to head there. It pretty much settled the matter: once his last year of standard schooling was over, he headed to New Heights Academy.
@ShwiggityShwah It's my (very limited and plausibly outright wrong) understanding that quirks do need to have a certain level of capability to even be considered for their users to be trained as heroes. My thought, along those lines, is that all hero-level quirks would have some practical use, and therefore a certain minimum degree of potency, but that it evidently varies within that range.
Mark Antony Collier, A.K.A. "Fly Guy"
Age: 13
Nationality: America, Land of the Free! Specifically, the city of New York in the state of New York.
Rank: 44
Appearance: One could imagine Mark would be a fairly normal guy, if not for his Quirk. One could imagine he'd be fairly light-skinned, and one can tell regardless that he has brown hair on his head, kept short enough to stay out of his eyes, and a fairly decent figure about five feet in height with, if one were to witness them, particularly well-built back muscles for his age. However, if one were not aware of who he was, the first idea of what he might look like would come from his regular shirts, which not only have an extra pair of sleeves underneath the usuals, but two large slits up the back, as if to allow for wings to pass through... and perhaps something else beneath those.
Costume: Things only get stranger as one witnesses his costume. Black jeans are simple enough a covering for his lower half, but the upper half could easily be mistaken for part of a knight's plate armour, albeit crafted from titanium and a padded leather lining with a peculiar metallic blue coat of paint over top, alongside further reinforcement of all six limbs - six, as that is the only explanation for the extra arm sleeves and gauntlets. The same slits from before are also present on the back of the breastplate, but part of it is composed of two solid metallic orb-like structures, complete with holes letting air in, as if to allow two small-ish objects to nestle inside with room to freely move about. Most strange is the two-piece helm - the upper half of which seems to be comprised mostly of black-tinted bullet-resistant plastic, solid enough to deflect quite firm strikes, yet covering the majority of the wearer's head with room to spare, especially over the face; and the lower half a facemask of the same metallic blue-coated titanium covering mouth and nose both, strapping on round the back of the wearer's head, but allowing room for... a large metal spike? Hollow, but clearly very sharp... what the hell does the person wearing this need that for?!
Type: Mutant
Effect: Mark's Quirk causes him to look very much like a fly - a large pair of transparent insectile wings and a pair of orb-like halteres have sprouted from his back around his shoulder blades; a second pair of arms has erupted from just beneath his armpits; his eyes have transformed into large compound lenses, red with an oil-slick sheen, taking up much of his upper face; most of his body is coated in stiff black hairs, wings and all, with a metallic blue sheen to his skin; and a sturdy proboscis protrudes from between his nose and upper lip, evidently intended to pierce into things.
The primary drawback of this quirk, evidently, is social, given that the vast majority of people will be utterly repulsed by such a visage, made worse by the long-term mental effects of such rejection. The quirk itself, however, is fairly substantial: there is an obvious benefit to wings in the form of flight, something Mark has practiced for a long time to actually achieve the physical strength needed, but this is massively enhanced by his halteres, which essentially act as miniature gyroscopes to pinpoint his position in space relative to other nearby objects, particularly in the horizontal plane, giving him pinpoint accuracy. Further flight effectiveness is achieved by the nature of his eyes giving him a very wide field of view, and the fact that his brain essentially processes the world in slow motion, letting him perceive events that normal people would not react to in time. The potential to detect both infra-red radiation and carbon dioxide emissions is also present in him, though he has yet to discover these properties.
Beyond flight-assisting benefits, his skin is actually somewhat chitinous whilst remaining flexible, and sturdier than one might give it credit for at a glance. Extra arms, evidently, are useful for greater ability to grab or indeed punch things, and can incidentally let him taste objects by placing his hands on them; a power not yet discovered is the capacity to cling to most surfaces by his hands, though he has experienced hints of this through occasional "sweaty hand" mishaps. Lastly, his proboscis is sharp and solid enough to impale flesh, and can both spew out a greenish enzyme-laden acid that is highly effective at breaking down and dissolving proteins, and suck up fluids such as blood and dissolved biomass for sustenance.
Whilst all of these add up to a very substantial powerset, it stands to reason that such extreme physical changes merit obvious weak points. His wings and eyes are large targets, and can be damaged quite easily if a hit lands on them, requiring a fair bit of time to recover from harm; much less obviously, his halteres are extremely sensitive organs, and in fact necessary for him to fly at all: a solid hit to them is debilitating in the same fashion as a kick to the testicles, and if they are destroyed or removed outright, Mark will become utterly unable to fly. Thankfully, he's quite a difficult target to hit and can weather harm to the rest of his body to some extent, further assisted by his costume, but contrariwise, he is in fact very lacking offensively, with just an extra pair of arms and a stabby implement that can spit up acid to his name, and the acid is at present entirely ineffective against non-biological material - a major factor in his initial low rank, evidently. Finally, whilst perhaps a minor issue by comparison, he requires a fair bit of energy to fly properly, usually supplementing a standard diet with plenty of sugar and starch.
Effect: Mark's Quirk causes him to look very much like a fly - a large pair of transparent insectile wings and a pair of orb-like halteres have sprouted from his back around his shoulder blades; a second pair of arms has erupted from just beneath his armpits; his eyes have transformed into large compound lenses, red with an oil-slick sheen, taking up much of his upper face; most of his body is coated in stiff black hairs, wings and all, with a metallic blue sheen to his skin; and a sturdy proboscis protrudes from between his nose and upper lip, evidently intended to pierce into things.
The primary drawback of this quirk, evidently, is social, given that the vast majority of people will be utterly repulsed by such a visage, made worse by the long-term mental effects of such rejection. The quirk itself, however, is fairly substantial: there is an obvious benefit to wings in the form of flight, something Mark has practiced for a long time to actually achieve the physical strength needed, but this is massively enhanced by his halteres, which essentially act as miniature gyroscopes to pinpoint his position in space relative to other nearby objects, particularly in the horizontal plane, giving him pinpoint accuracy. Further flight effectiveness is achieved by the nature of his eyes giving him a very wide field of view, and the fact that his brain essentially processes the world in slow motion, letting him perceive events that normal people would not react to in time. The potential to detect both infra-red radiation and carbon dioxide emissions is also present in him, though he has yet to discover these properties.
Beyond flight-assisting benefits, his skin is actually somewhat chitinous whilst remaining flexible, and sturdier than one might give it credit for at a glance. Extra arms, evidently, are useful for greater ability to grab or indeed punch things, and can incidentally let him taste objects by placing his hands on them; a power not yet discovered is the capacity to cling to most surfaces by his hands, though he has experienced hints of this through occasional "sweaty hand" mishaps. Lastly, his proboscis is sharp and solid enough to impale flesh, and can both spew out a greenish enzyme-laden acid that is highly effective at breaking down and dissolving proteins, and suck up fluids such as blood and dissolved biomass for sustenance.
Whilst all of these add up to a very substantial powerset, it stands to reason that such extreme physical changes merit obvious weak points. His wings and eyes are large targets, and can be damaged quite easily if a hit lands on them, requiring a fair bit of time to recover from harm; much less obviously, his halteres are extremely sensitive organs, and in fact necessary for him to fly at all: a solid hit to them is debilitating in the same fashion as a kick to the testicles, and if they are destroyed or removed outright, Mark will become utterly unable to fly. Thankfully, he's quite a difficult target to hit and can weather harm to the rest of his body to some extent, further assisted by his costume, but contrariwise, he is in fact very lacking offensively, with just an extra pair of arms and a stabby implement that can spit up acid to his name, and the acid is at present entirely ineffective against non-biological material - a major factor in his initial low rank, evidently. Finally, whilst perhaps a minor issue by comparison, he requires a fair bit of energy to fly properly, usually supplementing a standard diet with plenty of sugar and starch.
Personality: Mark's early life has not been generally easy, and consequently, he developed into a very aggressive person to protect himself. This has not generally helped him to make friends, unsubtle as he is, and in fact it has led to a great deal of problems actually integrating into society over time, to the point of requiring specialised support as a child to acclimate and be somewhat more social in general. He is still prone to sullenness and grudge-holding alike, and might bite your head off with a long rant about how much you suck if you intentionally upset him, but he's at least not likely to hit you with an insult just because you made a comment about his eyes.
That being said, underneath this outer layer of anger is a heavy dose of legitimate loneliness. He struggles to let people in even when he isn't taking out his frustration on them, and has had few acquaintances and even fewer friends in his thirteen years of life. Consequently, his hobbies tend to be solo in nature - reading both fiction and non-fiction, computer games, flying practice, and the occasional piece of short fiction, albeit with the level of writing quality one might expect of a thirteen-year-old - but this need to be legitimised has also helped fuel a degree of geniality to those who haven't upset him, and indeed a tendency to help those in need at the drop of a hat. Unusually, he's also gained a degree of knowledge about forging techniques, thanks to circumstances that arose just prior to his acceptance into New Heights.
History: As already stated, Mark's early life has not been generally easy. His father's Quirk, a benign little transformation number he called Bluebottle, mixed with his mother's needle-producing Quirk to produce a setup that seemed only marginally different from the former, save that Mark himself was born looking like a fly, instead of simply transforming into one. The change from Transformation to Mutant rather set the course of Mark's life to be highly negative: despite his best efforts and quite significant smarts, he was often bullied in elementary school, with few people willing to talk to him much, and only two other Mutants he could even call friends - and even with them, his behaviour and reputation steadily degraded until they split away for their own sakes when he was about eight.
It was also around this time he first suspected and, with all the gumption of an angry fly child, voiced his concerns that even his parents didn't really love him or even like him. Evidently, loving as they actually were, this was conclusive evidence to them that he needed some form of long-term support, and shortly after, he began seeing a counsellor with quite a positive track record. Between education and therapy sessions, as well as a brief period of time Mark spent on adderall that ended when his parents insisted it was ill-advised, Mark also attended a number of regularly-scheduled groups designed for those living in unfortunate circumstances - say, being part of an impoverished family, or looking like a fly person. Despite everything, these groups did actually help him somewhat, and whilst he never exactly made friends with anybody in them, he could at least talk to them every week or so.
It was one of those children that sparked something resembling interest in hero work - they, naturally, were convinced they'd become a hero, and went on at length about how they'd use their power and how they'd train it every day to get the spot they wanted. Something about that appealed greatly to him - maybe he'd even be liked by people, if he saved them! After getting his therapist's approval, and his parent's encouragement, he began to practice using his powers on a regular basis - part of which was figuring out what flies could do to begin with, before practicing to make proper use of them, including time spent on karate as a martial art, which he excelled in with his enhanced and increasingly-potent precision and slowed temporal perception allowing him to mimic stances and target weak points with ease. In particular, three years were spent furiously flapping his wings on a regular basis, seeming to make little to no progress beyond hovering, only to suddenly take off several feet one morning before school, as it transpired his wing muscles had grown exceptionally strong in the process of all that practice. This power was promptly used to show off in front of one of his bullies, and then to kick said bully in the face for years of humiliation. He maintains to this day that the detention was entirely worth it, even as he recognises the "cool factor" didn't make him any further friends.
Nonetheless, as he grew closer to the typical acceptance age for hero training schools, his father used his connections in construction to get Mark working alongside a local craftsman, helping to forge himself an outfit to enter into heroics with: lightweight, yet tough enough to protect him, and especially to ensure his most important body parts were shielded without being hindered to the greatest possible extent. Both parents also worked with him to start putting applications into as many hero schools as they could, and it was, perhaps, a great deal of good luck that one of those which confirmed his acceptance was within the United States, specifically Hawaii - sun, sand, high-quality education, exclusivity, and he didn't even need a Visa to head there. It pretty much settled the matter: once his last year of standard schooling was over, he headed to New Heights Academy.
Given Markus' flight capacity, and his clear preparation for the exam and future education, it was expected that he would achieve quite positive results. Indeed, his ribbon collecting seemed to go well initially, and he readily evaded most attacks from those robots which targeted him, displaying his Quirk's abilities very efficiently.
However, it became abundantly clear after attempting to help a fellow student in a difficult fight that he was entirely unprepared to fight artificial foes - his fists dealt minimal damage despite targeting weak points, his mouthparts could barely scratch the surface of any metal surfaces he attempted to puncture regardless of its extra reinforcement, and he seemed to shy away from most such fights as a result, panicking when forced into them. Even when he succeeded in puncturing the joints of the one robot he managed to defeat, the acidic substance later found in its systems had hardly corroded the materials at all despite clear danger to biological matter; the machine's disabling was largely due to a combination of physical tearing and short circuiting. Furthermore, he was unfortunate enough to be targeted by Hiroki Sakimoto partway through the exam, being disoriented and grounded by the fellow trainee's Quirk, and losing most of the ribbons he had collected up to that point, leading to reduced performance for the remainder of the exam due to apparent frustration.
It is hardly fair to suggest that Markus is incompetent, nor that he would not be capable of succeeding as a professional hero. Certainly, the theft of so many ribbons so late into the exam could be called "sheer bad luck", given the presence of a Quirk that almost directly countered his own. However, the rules of the examination are clear: preparation to defeat any foe is key, maintaining the right mindset is equally important, and luck must always be a factor considered in a real scenario, though points are given for helping another student without question. Regardless of his starting rank, Markus will have plenty of opportunities to prove himself more effectively throughout the remainder of his education, and we expect that he will rise to match his potential accordingly.
However, it became abundantly clear after attempting to help a fellow student in a difficult fight that he was entirely unprepared to fight artificial foes - his fists dealt minimal damage despite targeting weak points, his mouthparts could barely scratch the surface of any metal surfaces he attempted to puncture regardless of its extra reinforcement, and he seemed to shy away from most such fights as a result, panicking when forced into them. Even when he succeeded in puncturing the joints of the one robot he managed to defeat, the acidic substance later found in its systems had hardly corroded the materials at all despite clear danger to biological matter; the machine's disabling was largely due to a combination of physical tearing and short circuiting. Furthermore, he was unfortunate enough to be targeted by Hiroki Sakimoto partway through the exam, being disoriented and grounded by the fellow trainee's Quirk, and losing most of the ribbons he had collected up to that point, leading to reduced performance for the remainder of the exam due to apparent frustration.
It is hardly fair to suggest that Markus is incompetent, nor that he would not be capable of succeeding as a professional hero. Certainly, the theft of so many ribbons so late into the exam could be called "sheer bad luck", given the presence of a Quirk that almost directly countered his own. However, the rules of the examination are clear: preparation to defeat any foe is key, maintaining the right mindset is equally important, and luck must always be a factor considered in a real scenario, though points are given for helping another student without question. Regardless of his starting rank, Markus will have plenty of opportunities to prove himself more effectively throughout the remainder of his education, and we expect that he will rise to match his potential accordingly.
@ShwiggityShwah It's my (very limited and plausibly outright wrong) understanding that quirks do need to have a certain level of capability to even be considered for their users to be trained as heroes. My thought, along those lines, is that all hero-level quirks would have some practical use, and therefore a certain minimum degree of potency, but that it evidently varies within that range.
