Forum Replies Created
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Nike- Nicola Palladou
Powers- Flight, Retractable Wings, Superhuman Strength/ Endurance
How best to describe Nicola? Well, if you had to describe her in one word it would be: Energy. If you had to describe her in two words they would be: CALM DOWN! Nicola is very much a “doing” person, she’s always doing something, always active, never stopping for one minute (sometimes not even to sleep). She loves sports (she was a track star back in high school) and is always trying to make people happy, even if she can sometimes over step the line (personal space and boundries aren’t so much a thing for Nicola, they’re more… non-existant). She’s also pansexual because, as she puts it, “what’s the point in being picky” and, oh my god, is she a flirt (as literally every member of the Pride team can attest to, even Michael, which was both hilarious and awkward). However, when she does slow down, Nicola can be an increadibly insightful person and an excellent listener. She comes from a large family, with an elder brother and sister, a younger brother and around 20 cousins. The family gatherings are loud, cramped and, above all else, fun. But there’s a reason why Nicola is the way she is. If she gets into a dark place (which isn’t as hard as you’d first think), she goes in deep. Fortunately, since her powers emerged, there has been one thing that has proven to be a pretty sure-fire way of cheering her up from her less sanguine moments; flying. She loves being able to soar through the air and the freedom it brings (she only ever wears backless tops now, so she can spread her wings at a moments notice). She was the second to last member to join Pride, first meeting Melissa in a club after drunkenly showing off her wings on the dancefloor and then trying to flirt with her. I mean, it got her number, so I guess it worked right?
Source- Tavio Fernandez
Powers- Energy Blasts, Light/ Heat Emittance, Flight
Born in American to a Mexican family who had crossed the border illegally to escape gang violence in their home country. Their luck finally ran out when Tavio was 9 and they were found by a hitman hired by one of the gangs. Whilst both his father and mother were killed, Tavio survived by hiding under his bed (the hitman didn’t bother to look for him because neither he nor the gang knew Tavio existed). Of course, this event awakened Tavio’s dormant powers, which was difficult for him to handle, considering his age. It also didn’t help when he went into the foster care system, which he was passed around in for much of his teenage years. Teenage Tavio was not the easiest person in the world to work with if you were a carer or foster care staff (understandably so considering his parents were murdered) and his having powers only made things worse. There was even a time where Tavio ran away and lived rough on the streets, but that didn’t last too long. And that’s before any questions of sexuality come into the equation. Of course, with no parents and no stable adult figure in his life, Tavio had to figure himself out without anyone really to turn to, though he would eventually come to realise he was bisexual. Fortunately, life calmed down for Tavio by his 16th birthday, he managed to graduate school (despite a very rocky record) and started to volunteer at one of the shelters he would frequent during his time sleeping rough on the streets. It was around this time that he met Melissa Ashford and Jen Rudd, two fellow LGBT superhumans. It was these two meetings, plus Melissa’s friendship with Protectors member Manara, that inspired the creation of Pride.
Transistor- Alex Kane
Powers: Electro-Manipulation
Born as a girl, Alex always felt as though there was something wrong, as if he was in the wrong body. He tried to live as a girl, but he could never escape the disconnect between his brain and body. It was this dysphoria that brought about the emergance of his power to create and control electricity. Fortunately, Alex was able to begin transitioning after gaining a small inheritance when his grandmother passed away. A few years on and Alex is in a much better place, now living as a guy. He has also put his powers to good use, joining Pride and becoming their final member after a chance meeting with a few of the team members at his former place of work.
ReGen- Jen Rudd
Powers: Superhuman Healing Factor
Jen’s life before joining Pride is a tale of two halves. Raised in a devout Catholic family, Jen was expected to behave like a good God-fearing girl, do as they were told, go to church, say their prayers and eventually get married to a nice guy and raise a family. But as Jen grew older, they began to question a lot of what they had been brought up to believe. This really came to a head during Jen’s teenage years. Alongside a growing realisation that they didn’t really identify with the prescribed gender roles being enforced and the struggles of being Non-Binary in such a strict environment, Jen got kicked out of the expensive Catholic school that their parents had sent them to after being found to have smuggled cigarettes into the dorm. It didn’t help that a backcatalogue of talking back, questioning the sanctity of the bible and general disobediance had been building up gradually, but this was the last straw. As one might expect, Jen’s parents were not best pleased about this… and then things really kicked off. In fairness, Jen didn’t exactly help the situation, a few things probably shouldn’t have been said, but it all ended up with Jen being kicked from the house and invited to not return until that attitude problem had been fixed. Jen, being what could best be described as very stubborn, hasn’t spoken to their parents since. Unfortunately, things would only get worse from there. Jen’s time of the streets was rough and they don’t really like to talk about it now, but it all culminated in a suicide attempt around Jen’s 18th birthday, where Jen threw themself off of a roof onto the pavement below. It was at this point that Jen’s ability to heal from practically any injury manifested, which really sucked apparently, because Jen still feels pain and doesn’t heal instantly. It took them a days of pain to fully heal from all of the broken bones and torn up insides. However, after they healed, the knowledge of their powers made Jen reckless. They started acting more and more dangerously. Fortunately, it seemed as though fate intervened before Jen got into any more serious trouble as by coincidence they ended up staying at the same shelter that Tavio Fernandez happened to frequent when he was also living rough. The two formed a close bond (Jen now sees Tavio as almost like a brother, because he’s helped them out of so much and pretty much never let Jen down), so when Tavio and Melissa Ashford formed Pride, Jen was an obvious member.
Earthshaper- Michael Chase
Powers: Ability to manipulate the “power of nature”, Geokinesis
Since he was a child, Michael was all about one thing; sports. A standout football player at high school, he managed to get a scholarship to play collegiate football. However, his time at college would end up shattering his dreams. Michael had known he was gay since he was around 15, but had never come out for fear of backlash, but one time at college, he got drunk and let his guard down, he tried to kiss this guy he had a crush on in public and word got around. People started treating him noticably different after that, but things came to a head at practice. Michael doesn’t really have a good memory of what happened, but he ended up on the recieving end of a particularly nasty tackle, the aftermath of which left him in hospital with a concussion and a broken leg. Unable to play football again, he lost his scholarship, his place in college and his ability to do the one thing he’d always wanted to do. His powers manifested shortly after (latent superpowers tend to become active during periods of great stress), as Michael started working at a local gym as a fitness coach. Alone, depressed and with new superpowers developing and causing him all kinds of trouble, Michael was looking for an out. Fortunately, he was introduced by a mutual friend to Melissa Ashford and Tavio Fernandez, who saw his heroic potential and invited him to join their new superteam PRIDE.
Salamander- Melissa Ashford
Powers: Pyrokinesis, Immunity to the effects of heat
Born by a surrogate mother to a gay couple who wanted to have a family, Melissa was lucky in that she was brought up in a fairly liberal area. Of course, she got all of the “why do you have two dads” questions as a child, but she never thought of her family as something different. She realised she was a lesbian early on in her teens and came out to her dads fairly quickly (of course, they were very supportive). However, the family would later relocate, due to a change of job and Melissa would face for the first time real backlash against her sexuality and her race. It was soon after this that she met and became friends with Farah Al-Masur (Manara) and Melissa started to become more aware that her life before moving was an outlier. Through Farah, Melissa became more in touch with politics and came to understand the world a bit better. The pair would discover their powers at the same time (with Melissa being the only person able to approach Farah to calm her down when she lost control of her powers). Melissa would later be inspired by Farah’s work as a superhero and help found PRIDE, a superhero team made up of LGBTQ+ superhumans.
Right then. Big difference from the Pride team that we saw in my last set of designs back in 2017. So, what happened. Well, I tried to write a Pride comic and it made me realise a lot of things about the team. 1- Too many members. Pride back in 2017 had 10 members (and that’s not including the two people that made up one of the members). I cut out 2 members and still ended up basically ignoring one character entirely for the 1 issue I wrote (now, obviously I could have worked around this if I had staggered introducing team members, but the problem still would have remained). 2- The powers most characters had originally just didn’t work from a story telling perspective, for example White Lie. Way too overpowered.So, we’ve had a rejig. I’ve condensed 4 characters into 2 characters, got rid of one character (which is a shame because they were a cool concept, if unwieldy, but I salvaged the costume), changed everyone’s powers (with only one exception, I think)/ codenames and, of course, moved Manara over to The Protectors, because there just wasn’t room for her. We’ve also had a switch around of colours and of sexualities/ gender identities, but that’s a story for later.
Left To Right:Name: Masami MatsumotoPosition: Team DoctorExtra Info: Japanese-American, worked as a surgeon before working for The Protectors—————————-Name: Jamie WaltersPosition: Tech SupportExtra Info: A Technopath (someone who can influence digital technology with their mind), hacker and part-time dj, she hacked NASA, the FBI, the CIA, the UN, the FSB (Federal Security Service of Russia) and the Chinese Military before she was 18 years old.————————–Name: Gwen Peyton- LancePosition: Team CoordinatorExtra Info: Former intelligence agent, in charge of relaying information to the team during operations, essentially team boss (The Titan might think he is, but he still ends up doing whatever Gwen tells him to do most of the time)—————————Name: Gideon MantelPosition: Tech SupportExtra Info: Has Inate Capability (ability to comprehend any subject or object down to the most minute detail within minutes of learning the basics), has Asperger’s Syndrome and has extreme anxiety attacks when in high stress situations.———————————–JR Note:So, both Jamie (Stinger) and Masami (Neuron) got removed from the team (Jamie being on the first version of A Division and then The Saviours, whilst Masami was on the second version of A Division). Well, I didn’t like the idea of Jamie, being a disabled character, essentially being defined by her disability. The whole “needing a powersuit to be useful” wasn’t how I intended it to play out, but since I did the A Division version of the character, I’ve been made aware of a few things that, at least to me, cast that sort of light on the characterisation I went with. So I scrapped it and just went with the layer beneath, as it were, of a girl who is tech-smart and just happens to be in a wheelchair.As for Masami… well, she was actually going to be in this version of The Protectors, but she got removed last minute to make room for one character in particular (if you’ve been following me long enough, you should be able to guess which character got added last minute. She’s the character that was never in any previous incarnation of The Protectors or A Division and might give you a clue as to what I might be doing next). It really sucked to have to remove Masami from the team, but she was the least essential of the female characters to be on the team and the character that replaced her was one that needed to go on this team or she was going to be written out of history in a way, and considering how much I love this character in particular that wasn’t going to happen, hence her going in and Masami becoming Team Doctor.
Name: Michael BarnesCodename: The WatchmanPowers: Light Manipulation, Teleportation, Telekinesis, Astral Projection, Object AnimationBio: The inheritor of the Watchman title from Carl Barrett, Michael Barnes was a community outreach worker, running social clubs and the local community centre to try and keep kids in his neighbourhood areas away from gangs, crime and drugs. He gets his powers from a mysterious source known as “the light”. Little is known about “the light” other than it is ancient, powerful and only manifests in a few people (and even then, only one person at a time can fully utilise the power of “the light”). Michael discovered his connection to “the light” after Carl Barretts’ death, as “the light” manifested for the first time through him. This immediately got him an awful lot of unwanted attention, as Carl Barrett had made a lot of enemies during his time as the host of “the light” and as the superhero The Watchman. Fortunately, Barretts’ enemies weren’t the only people keeping tabs on “the light” and Michael was aided by The Titan and Andromeda. It was this event, alongside the return of Andromeda, that inspired The Titan to resurrect The Protectors, as Barrett had also been a part of that team.Random Extra Facts:– Michael is a preety good artist. He prefers to work with watercolour and mainly paints landscapes. One of the social clubs he ran during his time as a community outreach worker was a painting workshop and a lot of the paintings done in the club were displayed around the community centre he worked in.– He has a young daughter with his ex-girlfriend. Obviously, with him and the mother being seperated, he doesn’t see her as much as he’d like, but when he does see her, he spoils her rotten.– He’s quite a good handyman. His dad was a mechanic before he retired and his uncle worked as a plumber. Michael would help them sometimes when he was a teenager and he picked up a few skills.– In a strange ironic twist, Michael went to school with Carl Barretts’ daughter, Angela Velasquez (who would later become the superhero Warp), although neither of them knew who her father was nor the significance this would play in either of their lives.– Michael has a brother, Jason, who is trying to make it big as a rapper. At the moment it’s not working out all that well and Jason is currently working at a club as a barman, though he has seen an opportunity to gain some recognition through his brothers new found superpowers.
