Individual Character's full name: Ryan Alex Daniel Mutant (changed from MacIntosh)
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: none
Gender: male
Age: 24
Date of Birth: (06/21/1989)
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: Beacon, New York
Nationality: American/United States
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: Irish and German, but culturally he’s prettymuch just American.
AppearanceHair color and style: Short, messy, and naturally brown; it may or may not be any color in various amounts at any given time.
Skin Tone: Normally fairly pale, though he can tan a bit. It tends to fade pretty quickly though, and requires a sunburn to get in the first place.
Eye Color: Gray
Height: 6’ 1”
Build: Skinny; if he could eat enough, he’d be of a pretty average build, but he never does, so he perpetually looks like he didn’t quite finish that adolescent filling out stage.
Visible mutation: As changing energy is built up Ryan’s eyes turn pale green, though this isn’t obvious as mutation-related on its own; it’s only noticeable in that his eyes change. This is most noticeable after about twenty hours of energy building up; prior to that there might be a slight green tint, but not much.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: Ryan has several small scars from various sources, many of them animals which didn’t feel like being held while Ryan was changing them. None of the scars are particularly noticeable, though; they’re all small, many are faded, and none are in very prominent places.
Other features: Ryan is always eating something. Most of the time he prefers lollipops, but any kind of snack will do. If for some reason he doesn’t have something to eat, he’ll get extremely fidgety. In fact, he always is; it’s just that normally his fidgeting gets channeled into playing with the lollipop.
Everyday clothing style: Jeans, tee shirts, and jean or leather jackets; the more worn and damaged they are, the better Ryan likes them. Most of them have also had words or symbols added to them, either with paint or duct tape, and Ryan has one sleeveless shirt made entirely out of duct tape. Of course, that’s assuming he’s bothered to wear a shirt at all; if the day is particularly warm, that’s certainly not a guarantee.
Uniform: none
Sleepwear: Maybe, depending on how lazy he is. Either way he doesn’t have any clothes that are intended for sleeping, with the possible exception of sweatpants (and former sweatpants that have become sweatshorts), which he refers to as lazy clothes.
Miscellaneous clothing: CharacterPersonality: Ryan is deliberately and absolutely shameless; there isn’t much of anything he won’t do, at least not because of pride. Occasionally he’ll be embarrassed by something, at which point he’ll immediately decide he’s being stupid and he’ll dive headfirst into doing whatever embarrassed him to get himself used to it. Fortunately this doesn’t compel him to take dares; he’ll still refrain from doing something if it’s too dangerous, either to himself or to other people, though his idea of danger can be a little skewed. Ryan will also ignore dares if he thinks it’s stupid enough to be annoying, which typically has more to do with the source of the dare than the dare itself. Most of the time he defaults to being cheerful, though it’s easy to change that since he reacts so much to everything.
Ryan tends to be very emotional, and very expressive; he will occasionally make some attempt to hide whatever he’s feeling, but short of hiding himself he inevitably fails. Happiness is joy, sadness is despair, and anything amusing is hilarious; there really isn’t much of anything he won’t react to. The only exception is when he’s hurt emotionally, or scared of being hurt; internally he’ll react as much as ever, but externally he’ll shut down, since it’s the only way he can avoid breaking down completely and crying, which he really doesn’t want to do in front of anyone. Instead he does his best to get away, even if it means being rude or obvious, so he can hide somewhere until he recovers. Generally this means him disappearing for a few days, then showing back up acting like nothing ever happened, with the possible exception of ignoring whoever hurt him. Most of the time what causes this is some variant on him losing or being rejected by someone he cares about, or fearing that he will be.
Despite being generally very careful of the feelings of anyone he knows, Ryan enjoys causing chaos, and confusing people or making them feel awkward is always entertaining to him. He’s perfectly aware that his lollipops can be distracting, and gets endless entertainment out of the fact. Mildly offending people he thinks are bigoted or close minded amuses him too, as well as satisfying his inclination to want revenge on them, since he feels that just as easily as anyone else. Generally, Ryan thinks that if he isn’t really hurting anyone, anyone who’s offended by him deserved it anyway.
Hobbies/ Interests: Due to having to deal with his metabolism, Ryan’s developed a mostly obligatory interest in nutrition. He’s also interested in costume design, and therefore both fashion and art, and has some interest in special effects and music, though he doesn’t really do much with those. He gets involved in plays to design costumes for them, but doesn’t really care whether or not he does any more than that.
Job or part time job and description: Selling foxsquirrels. You’d be amazed what rich people will pay for a fancy pet. Or, that’s how he earns money; he considers his actual job to be activism. Technically he sometimes has ‘jobs’ making costumes, but that’s off and on, doesn’t pay nearly enough for him to live on, and he treats it like a hobby.
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Most of Ryan’s strongest fears revolve around being alone, rejected and/or unloved, and the various things that might cause someone he cares for to dislike him. Someone he loves dying would be his worst fear, if he ever dared think about it. He’s somewhat aware of these, but generally refuses to admit them. He has more regular, minor fears too, like fire, spiders, dying, etc., but tends to deal with those by charging in headfirst so he can pretend he’s not afraid.
Special talents: He’s become a surprisingly ruthless businessman, for how resentful he generally is of business. He’s also picked up minor skill in various tasks like designing pamphlets and writing essays, though none of it reaches a level that could be called a talent. He is very good at sewing, and at related skills like figuring out what size clothes someone wears.
MoralityGood: Ryan’s devoted to Improving The World, to a possibly obnoxious degree. He has no problem putting himself at risk to accomplish this, and will even consider doing so deliberately. Of course, he’s also happy to beat up anyone he considers a bigot if they cross a line or he can say they started it, and he doesn’t feel the least bit guilty over doing so.
MutationsMutation description: Ryan’s body produces a unique form of energy that changes animals into other animals, which don’t otherwise exist. As the energy builds up, his eyes appear to turn a pale green; when he uses the energy, they fade back to gray.
All changed animals keep the same mass and sex as whatever they originally were, so the changed animal’s size can vary greatly. The personality of the changed animal is based on its original personality, influenced by the moods Ryan was in when changing it. They also keep about the same life span as they originally had (slightly lengthened by the immunity to most diseases), and will be about the same age and therefore same amount through their lifespan as they originally were. The change works gradually on all aspects of the animal; after an hour an animal will have slightly more foxsquirrel like tail, ears, legs, fur, etc., which will stay that way until Ryan changes the animal more.
Currently, the only animals he changes are four-legged land mammals, which turn into what he has deemed ‘foxsquirrels.’
Foxsquirrels are what four-legged land mammals turn into. Foxsquirrels have four legs, four-toed paws with three retractable claws between the toes, and a fourth, non-retractable dewclaw on their back legs. They have a large, fluffy tail as long as their body, and long ears, which they can roll most of the way up, giving them a conical look. Their tail behaves like a fox’s tail, and their ears can move in almost any direction, as well as independently of each other, similar to cats’ ears. Their facial structure is somewhat like a fox’s face with larger eyes, and their legs look surprisingly delicate compared to the rest of their body. Their fur is thick and soft, with a ruff or mane (depending on the foxsquirrel and independent of their sex) around their neck. Their fur may be medium or long (“fluffy pillow” or “fluffier than reality comprehends”), and typically is a solid shade ranging from browns to rusty oranges to burnt yellows, though black and more intense reds and oranges have shown up occasionally. Often the ruff is a different shade, either lighter or darker than the rest of the body, and sometimes the tips of their ears or tail will match the ruff. Their eyes are reflective, typically green or yellow-green, but can be either yellow or a blue-green in some cases, and have a catlike vertical pupil. Foxsquirrels’ intelligence seems to be similar to that of crows, and they can be complete terrors if they happen to be mischievous or annoyed.
Strengths: Once changed, the change is permanent; it doesn’t wear off or go away, on its own. There’s no time limit on changing--Ryan could go back and finish changing foxsquirrels that he started changing years ago. The change is incredibly thorough in other ways, too: Ryan is essentially creating a new body for the animal, so most illnesses don’t affect them (as germs haven’t had time to adapt). If an animal had cancer before it was changed, the cancer would be gone when Ryan finished; if it was missing a leg, it will have a new one (though it will be smaller than it otherwise would; mass is still conserved).
Ryan has to be touching an animal and deliberately transferring energy to it to change it, so he doesn’t accidentally change anything. Also, once an animal is completely changed the changing energy will no longer flow to it, so Ryan can’t waste energy on an animal that’s already changed. He can tell when he’s out of energy too, but that’s mostly by being tired, and knowing what point he generally runs out anyway.
Weaknesses and Limitations: The change only works on living animals, and is quite slow--it takes a minimum of about five hours to change something as small as a mouse, with an additional hour needed per five pounds the animal weighs. Animals with severe injuries like missing legs that need to be regrown take longer to change, depending on the injury. The change affects the animals’ DNA, so they become infertile when changed. Ryan only produces about an hour’s worth of energy per day at most, and can’t store more than two hours’ worth of energy at a time; if it’s been building up for 48 hours, it just stops being produced until he uses some. Even that is supported by an absurdly high metabolism; the only way that Ryan can get enough calories to maintain a healthy (though even then, still low) weight is to eat essentially all the time that he’s awake. He’s always hungry, and tends to carry candy, especially lollipops, around, and be eating them all the time. His body temperature is also a few degrees higher than normal as a side effect, but apart from feeling cold a bit more easily that doesn’t really affect him.
If Ryan doesn’t eat enough, his body will continue to try to produce the changing energy, until he passes out. Once he passes out the energy will stop being created, which gives him some window to wake up and eat, but if he doesn’t or doesn’t eat enough, he’ll starve pretty quickly. If all the energy that can be stored has built up already he won’t starve as quickly, but he still needs far more food than normal. While it will take longer for him to pass out, his body can’t cope by stopping production of the energy, since it’s already off.
It’s possible for Ryan to force more than the amount of energy he has stored to be used, but only about five minutes’ worth, which will take ten minutes to transfer. If he does this he’ll become exhausted, and take the same risks that not eating enough causes; if he goes to the full five minutes’ worth, he’ll pass out completely. However, there’s an additional risk; the change energy that makes up that five minutes’ worth of extra is also the energy that protects him from being changed. If he drains it completely, he’ll get about ten minutes’ worth of change energy working on him before the protection builds back up. If he goes past the limit but not by that much he’ll still get some change energy, but not as much. Since he’s only done this a few times (the exhaustion is enough of a deterrent most of the time), and he’s human-sized, the changes are still too slight to be noticeable, and he’s completely unaware of this side effect.
Adapteds: One minute in an adapted’s field will undo about five to five and a half hours’ worth of change on an animal. The change isn’t instantly undone, but the animal will start changing back as soon as it’s in the adapted’s field, and the change will continue undoing itself for anywhere from several minutes to a few days, until the five hours’ worth of change (or whatever amount is appropriate, based on how long it was in the adapted’s field) is undone. How quickly or slowly the change undoes itself is unclear, and Ryan is oblivious to the existence of adapteds, so of course oblivious to this effect. If changed completely back to its original species, the animal can become fertile again, and will again be susceptible to all diseases which target its species, but any injuries that were healed in changing (cancer, missing limb, etc.) will not return.
Physical AbilitiesGeneral Physical Capabilities: Ryan works out when he can so he’s not completely inathletic, but he’s not very specialized or obsessive either, so he’s certainly no better than average in anything. Strength he’s probably a bit below average, for the simple fact of not having much muscle.
Fighting Style: mostly consists of ‘put up with more pain than they can, and keep punching.’ He’s not trained to fight at all, but that doesn’t stop him from getting into them.
Fighting Style Pros/Cons: If he fights someone trained, he’ll lose; if he fights someone with no training he has a decent chance of winning, but is still going to fairly beat up. Once weapons become involved, Ryan loses no matter what.
History Of Your CharacterRyan was the first child of his father’s second and mother’s first marriage. He had a half sister who was twelve years older than him, and not always around, and a brother who was three years younger; his father taught physics at a high school, and his mother was a dentist. The family, while a bit chaotic at times, was happy, and managed to balance everything surprisingly well, though none of the kids ever learned how to bother with schedules or planning things in advance.
Ryan’s sister Emily had perfect balance, and his father had gotten into physics in an attempt to figure out why materials moving faster made it easier for him to turn them into others, so it wasn’t a great surprise to anyone when Ryan’s mutation manifested when he was fourteen. There was some disappointment--Emily’s mutation had helped quite a bit with her gymnastics hobby, but she and their father had to keep their mutations very firmly secret. Ryan’s wasn’t particularly useful, and was obvious enough that it was hard to hide, so there was some regret that he would have to keep it secret when they figured out why the family’s cat was looking steadily less catlike.
Ryan, on the other hand, thought his mutation was the coolest thing ever, and did his best to tell everyone he could about it, though he did have enough self control to keep quiet about his family’s mutations. He was somewhat confused and thoroughly offended at the less than completely enthusiastic responses he got from many people. After all, he could create cool, never before seen fantasy animals! What was wrong with that? It was awesome! Several people tried to explain to him that mutations made lots of people uncomfortable, and that the problem wasn’t what he could do so much as that it was a mutation. Ryan declared the idea to be completely stupid, and informed everyone who didn’t like his mutation that they were stupid too. His parents tried talking him out of this once they figured out why he kept getting detentions for fighting or being rude to teachers. It didn’t really make a difference, since the best they could tell him was ‘they are stupid, but they’ve got power, so don’t offend them.’
In high school Ryan continued about the same behavior, which pretty quickly attracted the attention of one of the few other open mutants in school. Susan was an eleventh grade girl who created sparks any time her nails hit something, and who carried around thin stone slabs so she could do so and freak out the anti-mutant people in her classes without catching anything on fire. She had pink hair, her clothes eternally had scorch marks and tiny holes from the sparks, and she wanted to buy one of the foxsquirrels that Ryan could create. Ryan thought she was the coolest person ever, and was absolutely gleeful to help with the petition she was trying to get people to sign. He personally didn’t care all that much whether there was a specialized gym class for mutants to learn about their powers, but Susan did and Susan was awesome, so Ryan helped.
The petition failed, predictably, which upset Ryan more than Susan, and she began explaining to him how activism worked and how gestures were important even if they didn’t actually succeed. Somehow the conversation turned into Susan asking Ryan on a date, though neither of them could ever quite figure out how it happened.
Ryan had of course known there was such a thing as activism, but hadn’t really thought about it before Susan. Once she did point it out to him, Ryan dove in headfirst; he and Susan kept trying (and failing) to change the school, and he tracked down other mutant rights groups and activists. There weren’t any near him geographically, and the only organizations (if you stretched the definition a bit) he could find had distinctly anti-human tendencies. So he kept looking, and eventually ended up in the midst of activist blogs. Overall he was quite happy to have found them, though he sulked for a few months after he told Susan he was asexual and she broke up with him.
By the time Ryan and Susan stopped resenting each other, Ryan had begun blogging as well and was researching other focuses of activism, and Susan halfway through her senior year of high school. They decided to celebrate by starting an Activist Club in the school, even though Susan wouldn’t be around very long to be part of it.
The club was somewhere between a success and an utter disaster; it dissolved in less than a year, since the various members could never agree on what issue was most important. A GSA, a gender and feminism club, and a religious equality club were quickly formed by former Activist Club members, though, so Ryan and Susan considered it a success, if a somewhat annoying one. One of the members had also figured out that Ryan’s mutation might be why he was always tired, and that maybe if he ate more he’d feel better, which Ryan was grateful for.
Susan had graduated, however, which left Ryan alone in school again. A few of his friends had admitted to him that they were mutants, but none were willing to admit it publicly. This frustrated Ryan to no end, but he wasn’t willing to tell for them, so he helped them lie about it when he had to.
By the time Ryan graduated high school, he was thoroughly frustrated. He kept trying to accomplish things, and kept failing completely; even getting people to work with him was seeming impossible. Most mutants were more interested in either getting revenge on humans, or just trying to keep their own lives as simple as possible. The rest either were busy, didn’t like Ryan’s ideas, or simply didn’t care. The only thing he had succeeded in--entirely by accident--was starting a business. He’d initially posted videos of foxsquirrels just to show that mutations could be cute and endearing, rather than scary, but people had responded by wanting foxsquirrels, and in some cases wanting them enough to pay for them. Eventually Ryan figured out prices--high, so that anyone who bought a foxsquirrel would be somewhat assured to actually want one and treat it well--and the accidental business began.
Ryan would have very much preferred to be done with school after high school, but his parents made it very clear that that was not an option. So instead, he went to an art college to specialize in costume design, and took some business classes as well. His parents weren’t quite satisfied with that either, but they accepted that he really didn’t need any more, as long as he could make foxsquirrels.
While in college, though, Ryan finally managed to meet a few people who supported his activism, even if they weren’t quite as energetic about it as he was. This probably had something to do with the fact that Ryan had changed his last name to Mutant immediately after being accepted to the school. Jessica, a mutant who controlled dust, Mark, who wasn’t a mutant himself but had mutant cousins, and a professor who had mutant students joined Ryan and Susan’s (somewhat scattered, since Susan had moved to Boston) group of activist friends.
The group scattered more when Ryan and Mark graduated, as Ryan moved to New York City and Mark stayed in Beacon, and once she graduated the next year, Jessica moved to California. They keep in contact now, and all of them travel often to visit the others, especially Ryan and Jessica since they doesn’t really have normal jobs.
RoleplayWhere did you learn about this site?: Amber sent me here.
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Allison,
Persi/BlakeSample RP:Ryan had chosen a seat in the back of the classroom for a reason. Multiple reasons, in fact, since he was currently taking advantage of the space to lean his chair back without leaning into anyone else’s desk. Since he was near a corner, and no one was actually in it, it also meant he could see the entire class as the professor went through attendance, and searched for who responded. Ryan didn’t bother keeping track; if he talked to anyone, he could ask their name then, and have a much better chance of remembering it.
“Bradley Merle?”
“Brad.”
“Alright.” The professor marked something on his sheet, and continued. “Ryan….” He blinked. “Mutant?”
Ryan grinned, raised a hand, and waved, while tipping the chair a bit farther back. “Here.”
“Did I pronounce that correctly?”
Ryan grinned more. “Yep.”
“Wow, that’d suck,” a girl from the class added. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Ryan was pretty sure he knew that answer, but liked the way the conversation was going.
“Uh, being stuck with that name. It’d really suck, I bet.” She seemed somewhat confused.
Ryan was fine with that, and still grinning. “Nope, I picked it.”
“
Why?” someone else asked.
Ryan thought that was a stupid question too, but was happy to answer. He reached over, and pulled a freshly printed poster--or at least, a picture of his foxsquirrel pouncing on a cat toy, blown up to the size of a poster--out of its place in his backpack, slid off Emily’s old hair tie off, unrolled it, and held it up for the class. “This is a foxsquirrel, I make them.”
“...Oh.” The girl didn’t seem to have any better an answer to that than the rest of the class did. A different girl waited a moment before getting up and moving to a chair further from Ryan. He raised an eyebrow and stared at her.
The professor coughed. He looked like he was trying to hide amusement. Ryan grinned at him. “Right. Well then, moving on. Ryan Mutant is definitely here. Maria Narvaez?”
“Here.”
“Andrew Newman?”
“Andy.”
“Got it. Ryan, put the poster down,” the professor added as he glanced back over. Ryan grinned, and began rolling it up. “Danielle Oakley?”
The rest of attendance passed without any unusual interruptions, and the professor passed out syllabuses before dismissing them, because “I know none of you would pay attention today anyway.”
Ryan took his time leaving, and before he did the professor wandered over to him. “So if I may make a guess, you’re involved in mutant rights?”
“Yeah.” Ryan had stopped grinning, and was now cautious; annoying a class full of strangers was easier, and in some ways safer, than offending the class’s teacher. Not that he’d regret it, but still; a bigoted lecture now wouldn’t exactly help his mood. Not that it ever would.
The professor smiled, and Ryan relaxed. “I’d caution you about the consequences, but you’ve quite effectively ensured that you’ll be dealing with those anyway. So please feel free to come to me if you need help with anything… and please try not to disrupt my class too much.”
That… was more than Ryan had expected. Way more. The professors he’d had earlier had just ignored him, one with distinct amounts of frostiness. He blinked, then smiled. “I can do that.”
Anyway, happy third.