I was recently thinking about potential Blue Path characters for CoT, and a genre that I didn’t think about providing supers from, was Hollywood.
More specifically, as a source of potential backstories or scenarios that induce powers, etc.
I was thinking of creating potentially two heroes, perhaps one inspired by golden age Hollywood, a former actress or soap star, and one from the modern age of Hollywood, action and adventure.
Concept Names:
Diamond Lil/Amentrine (Skin turns into a quartz like substance, a potential brick)
Miss Adventure or Danger Girl (Former stuntwoman/reality tv adrenaline junkie turner peak human mutant or mutate.)
Prism
Aurum
Ideas for backstories or other concepts?
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Generally, I prefer Literature to Hollywood, particularly myth, legend, and, to some extent, History. Hollywood is, so often, Derivative. I've posted several of my own backstories here.
That said, I like your proposed characters. 'Danger Girl' could be any sort of adrenaline junkie, even a 'Kim Possible', but stunt-person or martial-arts Action Gal works fine.
I also approve of the 'great diva' approach, someone who seems ageless and indestructible, informed by ancient wisdom and beauty. I actually have a few characters like that, myself. Adiamente, Astarte, Black Valkyrie, & Kitsuneko come to mind.
Be Well!
Fireheart
My idea for Danger Girl was that a accidental stranding on an island actually used by a lone super villain or being cut off from her camera crew and the safety of her network, forced her to survive on her own and potentially activated her mutation maybe?
With Diamond Lil, my thought is that she would take the name of Mae West’s most famous work, also a reference to her ability to transform her skin into a Diamond-like substance, granting her a degree of invulnerability and super strength.
I imagine she’s maybe a modern drama and soap star, and while she originally operated as a hero to save ratings for her soap ‘Titans of Tomorrow’, she genuinely enjoys being a hero.
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One of the videos MWM released showed a controller using dance moves. Makes me think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
any Hollywood movie with "Dance" in the title could make a hero name, like [u]Dances with Wolves.[/u]
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Had an idea once where the secret identity of a hero was the stuntman/star on a show about his super hero identity.
So he'd be like Captain Amazing (or whatever his name ends up being) who plays Captain Amazing on TV.
Always gives him an excuse if people see him in costume (was on my way to a shoot/charity event) and likely no one would believe he's actually the hero he plays on TV.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Diamond Lil is the name of an invulnerable Marvel Comics character, created by John Byrne for Alpha Flight. Since she's a mutant, and Alpha Flight is closely connected to X-Men stuff, she also appears in X-Men material. Obviously Byrne's character is also a reference to the Mae West play, and the older 19th century folklore stuff it's based on, but that could be an issue.
It's worth noting that the novel "Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Grossman, has a major character named Lily... who's invulnerable and made of a translucent... diamond-like... substance. I didn't get the gag, but as an old CoH supergroup member told me, this is almost certainly a reference to Diamond Lil as well. But maybe Grossman had to change the name for legal reasons?
I figure since it's a modern folklore reference, it should be fair game, but, well, grey area and all.
One of my own regularly played CoH characters was a superpowered actress. No secret identity. She did films and TV, and it was widely known that she had powers. The idea was that her public superhero persona was a role - at least, she treated it that way. A lot of fake-it-until-you-make-it going on there, because she didn't [i]really[/i] see herself as extremely brave or heroic. Or, if you prefer, on a very meta level, whenever I typed anything in-character, I was playing the role of a person playing a role...
Hmm, well then, ideas on how to modify her character or other names to avoid potential copyright or IP issues?
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Diamond Phil
Diamond Bill
Diamond LOL
Diamond la Kill (Bill)
Diamond Jill
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The Mae West reference is Diamond Lil, but that's thought to be based on an existing folklore legacy name used by multiple women in the 19th and early 20th century... so "Diamond Tooth Lil" or "Diamond Tooth" would be historical alternatives and sidestep issues with Marvel's version, if that's a concern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Tooth_Lil
Though you may not like how those sound.
"Lady Lou" would be the character from the movie based on Mae West's play, but that loses the obvious diamond reference. Not ideal.
The friend who pointed out the Diamond Lil reference in "Soon I Will Be Invincible" has run characters called Lily the Diamond or Lily Diamond as their take on it... I suppose "Diamond Lily" may be possible too, but at this point I'm literally telling you about character names used by a former CoH player who'll probably do them again in CoT when it goes live. That may be an issue for you, or not.
Honestly, if 'it's already been done' is a problem, there's probably other 1900s-1920s era references you could do.
The following suggestions may be more suitable for your 'modern Hollywood' character and not your classic film thing, but... gold instead of diamond in her hardened form and call her "Statuette", for an Oscar/Academy Award reference... though that's a bit more straightforward. Maybe "Chroma Key" if she's translucent or crystalline, or her powers include phasing as well as density. Refers to the bluescreen or greenscreen techniques in film. For that matter, "Bluescreen" or "Greenscreen" could work as well. But, again, that's modern stuff.
How about “Starlet” as an another name?
The only published character I can find was in one issue of some obscure independent comic book.
This is a really good one. Especially because it gives you all sorts of iconography to work with. An appropriate emblem or costume pattern basically suggests itself, here...
On a similar vein, my old... well, not [b]main[/b], since like most people I was an altoholic, but one of my top five main[b]s[/b] on Virtue was Leading Lady, and her Praetorian evil counterpart was, naturally, Celeb. You can probably easily run down a list of such terms and pick out something that'd work.
Hell, coincidentally, another of those five characters [i]also[/i] did the skin-to-diamond thing, so I've thought about names in that space, but ideally you want something movie-related rather than just a crystal or stone motif.
For the diamond character, perhaps Jackie Diamond?
Miss Bad Axe, who I mentioned in another thread, dresses to look like a Hollywood starlet of her time (the late thirties), scaled up a bit. ^_^
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
I like the idea of Starlet as a name, though she would need a set of powers and an origin to match. Perhaps a dramatic scene gone wrong, rivals hire gangsters for a hit, or something?
Powers I could see potentially being a brick and flight, or on the flipside energy projection or light manipulation?
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Would depend on what motifs you're going for. Some of these aren't necessarily exclusive. Powers manifesting after some kind of accident on set could easily be an actual accident, or a hit attempt by mobsters. The assassination thing gives your character an early set of antagonists. Without the mob, though, it can still be interesting - more focus on the character asking about what's happened to her, or exploring her new status.
A character can be both a flying brick and an energy manipulator - energy brick is a fairly common subset by now. But a straight flying brick with no or weaker projectile powers is playing more to the Supergirl motifs, whereas having no superstrength or durability is a different beast. Depends on what imagery and feel you want to evoke.
Also depends, eventually, how you want to play the character.
I believe with this particular character I want to echo more of an homage to Supergirl, so I think I’ll do a flying brick with maybe a latent energy projection power eventually.
I think an accident that turns out not to be an accident would at least give her a good intro to being a new hero, foiling the plot gained her relative stardom in Hollywood, and more PR oppurtunities and such.
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What's wrong with 'Lilly Diamond', then? Except it's the name of a real person... So, some synonyms, like Diamant or Adamant.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I imagine... it depends on how attached Gladatoria is to the 'turn skin into hard crystal substance' powerset. A character who can do that, and is named 'Diamond Lil', gets a neat historical stage/cinema reference. Except Marvel Comics has already made the same reference. The further the name drifts from 'Diamond Lil', the less likely that someone will recognise the reference or even successfully google it... to the point where I [i]didn't[/i] spot a version of this reference in Austin Grossman's novel.
I'm guessing Gladatoria isn't [i]that[/i] attached to the specific powerset, because over the course of the thread, we've seen discussion turn to the less problematic name of 'Starlet' - no obvious clash with a Marvel/DC character that we can find, achieves the idea of a vaguely 1920s feel, and it seems Gladatoria's cool with picking other powers to match that.
If someone [i]is[/i] very attached to the crystal skin powerset and that name, then, yeah, sure, Lilly Diamond, Lily Diamond, and so on would be good choices... I know that, because variations of that are [i]exactly[/i] what someone I know used in CoH, CO, and I think DCUO. But I don't think anyone really got the meta reference, the most people connected it to was Grossman's book.
Yeah, I mean the whole thing would be a trope, likening Hollywood’s fixation on precious gems and femininity being linked, turning it from something asinine into a character who plays a damsel into a real life superhero was the idea.
I am open to however, the concept of a actress who becomes a hero for PR first, hence the marketable name Starlet, and falls in love with the idea of being a genuine hero, and moves to Titan City.
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If more than just a tooth, she could be Diamandible. Although that sounds more kaiju than ingenue. An innocent monster of the silver screen. Kaigénu.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
Maybe she turns into a glittering monkey, named Diamandrill?
Or insect? Diamantis?
Swim underwater as Diamanta?
She could live in the Diamansion.