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Post by Erika on Jul 4, 2014 21:52:42 GMT -5
Sometimes a hero needs a cover story to hide their identity. Discuss how your job, lifestyle and relationships can help or hinder your identity. Consider what kind of excuses you would need to explain away missing work, school or a family event, or account for an injury. Describe an example scenario where such an excuse might be necessary, and how you would react to it.
This is a short answer assignment.
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Post by sync1ine on Jul 17, 2014 11:16:15 GMT -5
Although I am not sure it was clearly defined or stated in the original question, this essay is going to be limited to more easily defined secret identity issues rather than go into the murkier waters other choices of hero/villain actions might lead.
When you choose to pick up a card, privacy and safety issues are paramount. Few of us are islands; we have relationships, families, friends and financial concerns that all need to be addressed in order to have a successful career. And then there is the matter of how brightly your calling burns. How much of your life is your calling going to consume? Does it define you? Does it take up most of your life? Some of it? Can you go on vacation from it or does it consume you?
These are two sides of the balance you are setting with your life: The life you were handed and have built upon versus your calling. Ultimately, one wins.
Once you are able to be honest with yourself about what really matters to you, you can decide what relationships, jobs and other entanglements you keep and what you pare away from yourself.
An ideal job allows you to reach your desired standard of living with minimal time spent actually DOING the job; tax accountants, reporters, playboy millionaires, inventors, street bums and writers all have large blocks of time where they appear to have been "at home" doing pretty much nothing, and those 'unused' time periods are easily filled with time spent on your calling. Jobs tend to involve authority figures and other annoyances to your activities; a carefully chosen career and employer will save no end of lying and subterfuge, and the careful use of your powers or abilities will easily enhance your effectiveness at your job. Consider Crusader using super speed to do his customer's taxes, or Spiderman arranging photo opportunities for Peter Parker. No job normally requires sharing your secret identity, and the nature of a business environment virtually guarantees issues if you let your other identity slip. Lie often and well, and keep it simple.
Lifestyle and Family issues are intensely personal to the person and the calling; if you are truly driven by your calling, family and friends tend to die off or take care of themselves by isolation. If you have decided to keep close ties in your life you are faced with deciding who to share your identity with, and who to lie to. In this case, one rule normally applies: three people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. A spouse and no more is best. If not sharing seems best to you, become comfortable with the idea of sex clubs, disposable relationships and sex workers. Every additional person is a point of failure and an opportunity for a tiny mistake to snowball out of control. The longer you are in the business, the more likely you will be 'outed'. This rule applies in spades to villains. Sooner or later you will run afoul of heroes, an annoyed bed mate, or the authorities. At that point you no longer have a secret identity, and everything you care about is at risk. Plan accordingly.
Excuses can be accumulated and built up over time like a suit of armor or a second skin.
For example, develop a reputation for clumsiness, and cultivate it often. It allows you to explain away injuries and needing to go change clothes or 'go home' in an emergency. Many, many heroes have fallen back onto this old excuse, but villains will find it useful nearly as often. Superman, Crusader, the Penguin, Shazam, Spinnerette and many, many more have all used this old chestnut.
The playboy, airhead, wastrel princeling is a cover as old as time. It keeps serious relationships at arms length, allows you to be an utter bastard when necessary and allows you to take no end of rude actions and justify them as merely being 'yourself'. Batman, Iron Man, Blue Beetle, Golden Age Flash, Dr. Doom, and many, many others have used wealth as both the springboard to the start of a career and as an excuse to explain away inconvenient issues, injuries or actions. If you have the opportunity to accumulate wealth without directly connecting it to your personna or calling, it can provide endless opportunities for both excuses and actions that protect your identity.
Many people gain their calling at an early age. This means reduced autonomy, parental/family obligations, educational and social issues and on top of all this, reduced awareness of risk and poor judgement. Let us suppose our hero is 17, and wandering about a park at a family picnic when a series of explosions and an alarm goes off in a nearby bank. Her offhand wrist is broken in the fight with the older villain robbing the bank. She escapes but was unable to apprehend the villain. What are her issues? 1> the villain knows she was hurt and will be looking for her. 2> she must come up with an explanation (the phoney "incident" that 'broke' her wrist) for the injury to maintain her cover identity. 3> She must reach the family outing, then home and safety while injured WITHOUT being seen by our villain. How do we proceed?
Loud distractions and messy fights will give most injured heroes the opportunity to hide in the rubble and be "injured" with the other poor civilians in the proceeding fight as a bystander. Additional injuries that are not easily proven like ringing in the ears or nonspecific pains after "the wall fell on you" may get you a lot of lab tests or a stay overnight in the hospital with the rest of the victims, but also provides excellent cover that will not jibe with the injuries the villain saw.
The family will have to be told something like you saw something interesting in front of the bank immediately before the explosions, or that you were passing by when it began. Once again, a history of being 'clumsy' or 'always in the wrong place when bad things happen' can work to your advantage here. The issues you will face when explaining away the evidence of a calling is as varied as you can imagine. Extensive preparation, the cultivation of assumptions by those close to you, and quick decisive thinking are your best tools for dealing with the expected fallout of such a career.
Grade: 2 Grapefruits
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Post by Twitch on Jul 26, 2014 23:31:00 GMT -5
Keeping my identity secret from civilians will be fairy easy. Villains with a grudge, all bets are off. My family knows about my powers/education/plans. However, I know that lies are hardest to hid in groups, so while they can cover for me for Thanksgiving or weddings, I don't want over involve them. Since I'm living off the Vegas winnings, I don't need a job right now. However most of that money is going to MCCC and my regular college tution. I can't - and won't - flash Rolex or classic Shelby around campus. I'm a simple student supported by government loans  . Mild injuries will be easy to explain. With my history in sports it won't be to far a stretch to say I'm taking MMA. The trick will be disappearing for a non-existence class. Joining a real class is an option I can keep on the table - say a friend wants to visit the gym. For serious injuries, I'll have to put it down to 'bad luck.' For missing school, and later work, my play is to use a 'fake-lie.' The fake-lie is when I invent a simple and obvious lie. People will know I'm hiding something, invent a story, confront me with the 'truth' and stop there. Example: I come in blurred eyed from a long night and mutter, "I over-slept." It's obvious I'm lying. Maybe she was up with a guy, or partying, or shooting drugs. They confront me, I nervously insist "I over-slept," and they walk away with their beliefs confirmed. The one side-effect of the fake-lie is that people will spread rumors about me. Well, after my highschool fiasco, I think I have a tough skin. If I have my family, the rest of the world can go 'sit on it and swivel,' as my late Grampa put it. Grade: 100 points for you, and another 100 points for Grandpa, cuz it sounds like he was a spiffy guy |
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Post by rypperd0c on Jul 29, 2014 4:20:36 GMT -5
Thank the gods for the modern interne culture. The anonymity granted by choosing to interact with the world through a computer screen. The nerdy shut-in that makes a good living off of day trading, or on-line poker can now live a comfortable life in private.
Doing "Psychic Readings" over the phone and internet allows me to generate a good income, and I can do it with only a part time commitment. My family thinks I am doing on-line and on-call tech support, so sudden calls to action are sudden calls to revive a client's server. And of course when things go really wrong down town, or wherever heroes and villains are battling it out, the demand for net support goes up. Something exciting will provoke an internet buzz, with pictures, video clips, and discussions. Damage to an area could down telecom lines, causing outages. I have a perfectly good reason to hurry away, or not be available during emergencies. I could do tech support, I have in the past, but playing the Psychic pays better.
This is the perfect way to live, for a working hero that does not have a fortune to live off of.
"We missed you at the party. Where were you?" Someone asks.
"Client spilled coffee into his computer," I answer. "Fzzz.. Pop!, and he needed a new computer and a data recovery."
or
"My god! Dude, what happened?" Comes the demand for why I am bandaged up and moving with a noticeable limp and arm in a sling.
"I was running cable through the ceiling, and someone in a hurry knocked the ladder out from under me," I can explain.
I can even tell my mother that the work hours makes it hard to meet the right woman, but I'll settle down some day...
Grade: a bunch of that money made from crafting outfits on Second Life
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Post by Kashiro on Sept 1, 2014 6:52:31 GMT -5
I don't interact too much with others due to studying for my final year of high school. Furthermore, the school uniform covers everything except my hands and face/neck (Yay Year 12 jerseys!). This would help me to account for missing time and possible injuries. I'm also known as a bit of a clumsy guy who does a lot of things and injures himself in the meantime, so it probably won't be too out of character for me to limp to school one day and just say that I stuffed up a lip or something. To explain why I miss school, I have no way besides jigging school and hoping for the best. Unless I tell me parents, it's not going to be easy otherwise. It's easy to miss family events, however, by saying I need to study. An example scenario would be would be the tan that would inevitably occur after patrolling enough. As a solution, I would either use sunscreen before patrols, or use makeup to cover it up for day to day actions. A possible injury would be a blow to the ribs from a baseball bat. This will be sore, but covered up, and I could just say I did a too hard workout, unless the ribs are broken, in which case I will search online whether it needs to be set professionally. If so, I will say I tripped over a tree root in the dark, faceplanting and crashing into a tree, then go to a doctor. Alternatively, just go to the doctor by myself. For the amount of time I'm away, I can explain that there was a study session at the library that went on too long.
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Post by Twitch on Sept 3, 2014 18:06:20 GMT -5
I don't interact too much with others due to studying for my final year of high school. Furthermore, the school uniform covers everything except my hands and face/neck (Yay Year 12 jerseys!). This would help me to account for missing time and possible injuries. I'm also known as a bit of a clumsy guy who does a lot of things and injures himself in the meantime, so it probably won't be too out of character for me to limp to school one day and just say that I stuffed up a lip or something. To explain why I miss school, I have no way besides jigging school and hoping for the best. Unless I tell me parents, it's not going to be easy otherwise. It's easy to miss family events, however, by saying I need to study. An example scenario would be would be the tan that would inevitably occur after patrolling enough. As a solution, I would either use sunscreen before patrols, or use makeup to cover it up for day to day actions. A possible injury would be a blow to the ribs from a baseball bat. This will be sore, but covered up, and I could just say I did a too hard workout, unless the ribs are broken, in which case I will search online whether it needs to be set professionally. If so, I will say I tripped over a tree root in the dark, faceplanting and crashing into a tree, then go to a doctor. Alternatively, just go to the doctor by myself. For the amount of time I'm away, I can explain that there was a study session at the library that went on too long. What happens if you have different kind of injury? Say someone hit you with a ninja throwing needle. There's a good chance it will be poisoned and the effects could even alter your judgement. If you play it solo like you've described above, you're screwed. You won't have the time to find help yourself and you don't have someone who will quickly understand what happened. Best case outcome, you'll get rushed unconscious to a hospital. If you're lucky the doctors will guess the poison right and get you the antidote before the damage kills you. Also, antidotes only stop poison - they do not reverse damage. You now are now the center of attention and in a weakened state. If the ninja is watching the hospitals, your secret identity is blown. To top it all off, the police have a lot of questions to ask you. It will be hard to keep the lies straight even with help from your family. You still might be able to keep your identity hidden from civilians, but only if Mr. Ninja doesn't make it public. Moral of the story: Get backup on patrols and find a private doctor you can trust. |
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Post by Kashiro on Sept 4, 2014 6:12:29 GMT -5
I don't interact too much with others due to studying for my final year of high school. Furthermore, the school uniform covers everything except my hands and face/neck (Yay Year 12 jerseys!). This would help me to account for missing time and possible injuries. I'm also known as a bit of a clumsy guy who does a lot of things and injures himself in the meantime, so it probably won't be too out of character for me to limp to school one day and just say that I stuffed up a lip or something. To explain why I miss school, I have no way besides jigging school and hoping for the best. Unless I tell me parents, it's not going to be easy otherwise. It's easy to miss family events, however, by saying I need to study. An example scenario would be would be the tan that would inevitably occur after patrolling enough. As a solution, I would either use sunscreen before patrols, or use makeup to cover it up for day to day actions. A possible injury would be a blow to the ribs from a baseball bat. This will be sore, but covered up, and I could just say I did a too hard workout, unless the ribs are broken, in which case I will search online whether it needs to be set professionally. If so, I will say I tripped over a tree root in the dark, faceplanting and crashing into a tree, then go to a doctor. Alternatively, just go to the doctor by myself. For the amount of time I'm away, I can explain that there was a study session at the library that went on too long. What happens if you have different kind of injury? Say someone hit you with a ninja throwing needle. There's a good chance it will be poisoned and the effects could even alter your judgement. If you play it solo like you've described above, you're screwed. You won't have the time to find help yourself and you don't have someone who will quickly understand what happened. Best case outcome, you'll get rushed unconscious to a hospital. If you're lucky the doctors will guess the poison right and get you the antidote before the damage kills you. Also, antidotes only stop poison - they do not reverse damage. You now are now the center of attention and in a weakened state. If the ninja is watching the hospitals, your secret identity is blown. To top it all off, the police have a lot of questions to ask you. It will be hard to keep the lies straight even with help from your family. You still might be able to keep your identity hidden from civilians, but only if Mr. Ninja doesn't make it public. Moral of the story: Get backup on patrols and find a private doctor you can trust. If ninjas are stalking you, you have bigger problems than simply keeping your identities apart. |
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Post by Erika on Sept 4, 2014 22:43:34 GMT -5
On the plus side, ninjas are rarely the ones interested in your secret identity. Also, ninjas have a kind of collective intelligence. The more there are in a flock, the dimmer they appear to be...
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Post by Kashiro on Sept 6, 2014 5:40:30 GMT -5
On the plus side, ninjas are rarely the ones interested in your secret identity. Also, ninjas have a kind of collective intelligence. The more there are in a flock, the dimmer they appear to be... Conservation of Ninjutsu. Similar to the Rules of the Marquis of Fantailler - sounds smart until you put it into practice. |
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Post by Twitch on Sept 6, 2014 10:23:40 GMT -5
Conservation of Ninjutsu. Similar to the Rules of the Marquis of Fantailler - sounds smart until you put it into practice. Hmm, I think I found just found another Pratchett fan. Where'd you pick up that phrase? |
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Post by Kashiro on Sept 6, 2014 22:55:18 GMT -5
Conservation of Ninjutsu. Similar to the Rules of the Marquis of Fantailler - sounds smart until you put it into practice. Hmm, I think I found just found another Pratchett fan. Where'd you pick up that phrase? I know it was mentioned in snuff, but I can't remember what other book it was from. I swear there was one though. |
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