Individual
Character's full name: Michael Phelipe Santos
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: A grand total of five people call him ‘Mike’ currently, all of whom are his immediate family. Most of the time he prefers ‘Michael’.
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Date of Birth: May 3, 2001
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nationality: American
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: His father’s side of the family has Mexican roots, while his mother's is a mix of various European heritages.
Appearance
Hair color and style: Michael’s hair is a dark brown, short on the sides but long enough on the top to style it into a small quiff.
Skin Tone: Tanned.
Eye Color: Chocolate brown.
Height: 5’8”
Build: Athletic.
Visible mutation: He has retractable white wings that span about 15 feet from wingtip to wingtip that extend out from his shoulder blades. When not in use, his wings can be folded and shrunken down into a slightly bulging white feathery growth on his back. Due to their bioluminescence, they glow in the dark whether he likes it or not.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: None.
Other features: Due to his paraplegia, Michael is constantly confined to a wheelchair when he needs to be out and about. The wheelchair is manual, but very maneuverable, giving him as much control as he needs, within the limits of human and wheelchair capability of course.
Everyday clothing style: Even though the back of his wheelchair is enough to hide his glowing wings, Michael still tries to wear light-colored tops, usually a white jacket or shirt depending on the weather, just in case so he can remain inconspicuous.
Uniform: None for the foreseeable future. Costumes, especially the tight spandex variety, remind Michael of his acrobat days, and make him very uncomfortable.
Sleepwear: A white t-shirt and boxer briefs.
Miscellaneous clothing: N/A
Character
Personality:To many, Michael may come off as a pessimistic prude who would like nothing but to rain down on someone else’s parade. Try as he might to defend himself, they do have a point.
Michael is nothing less than blunt in his opinion. While he isn’t actively trying to seek out opportunities to badmouth the people around him, he does however have no problem with voicing out exactly what he thinks if asked or provoked, having little to no remorse if he ends up offending someone. He doesn’t beat around the bush when he’s giving criticism or commentary. Michael especially despises empty promises, blind hopes or typical “just believe in yourself and you can do anything” crap. He knows very well that the truth hurts, but believes that the truth is necessary at times, and if the cold hard truth is what it takes to stop someone from getting too carried away, he’ll gladly use it. If he is aggravated, he won’t hesitate to add an extra dose of venom to his words, either, and he can be very mean if he wants to.
Speaking of his words, many an individual has had to deal with Michael’s sarcasm and often cheeky dialogue, even more so when one of two things present themselves to him in any given situation: if the person speaking to him says something he deems stupid or unnecessary, or if another person is constantly pestering him. A “prude” isn’t exactly an inaccurate way to describe him, since he has a lot of bite to spread around, but pessimistic? Enjoying offending people? Those are more of a misconception than anything.
Despite his generally difficult exterior, Michael does have a caring heart. Perhaps it’s because he cares too much that he’s so direct with his opinions. He knew what it was like to have his hopes dashed and devastated not once, but twice, and doesn’t wish that sort of despair on anyone which is why if he can help it, he’ll try and keep their hopefulness in check; he doesn’t want to see the people around him hurt. Yet at the same time, he’s very careful about giving away his trust and letting people in, since he’s been betrayed before, so he usually tries to keep to himself. While others might confuse this for an incredible amount of pessimism, his outlook on life is a more realistic one; not too optimistic, not too pessimistic. He tells it as it is. Some might criticize Michael for being too realistic, but he’s had enough cruelty that he’d rather not wish or hope for more, lest it be ripped away from him again.
Secretly, however, and this part of himself he guards fiercely, is that he just wants to be free. It’s why Michael took up acrobatics in the first place. He hates being tethered down, hates being confined to his wheelchair against his wishes. Even though he throws up a facade of snarky remarks and sarcasm, when he’s alone, when he’s sure he’s alone, he often finds himself breaking down into tears, cursing his life and cursing his wings. He’s lost the use of his legs. Michael has wings that he can’t use unless he wants to draw anti-mutant sentiments to himself, in addition to the internalized shame he feels from being deemed a freak by his former friends. Despite the physical and mental therapy and the rehabilitation, he still has zero sense of purpose and it slowly eats away at him inside.
Because all he wants is to be able to fly.
Hobbies/ Interests: Formerly acrobatics, particularly the aerial variety. While he still keeps up on exercise so as to not let his body completely break down, his rigor and passion is nowhere near where it was before his paraplegia. During rehab, he’s managed to take up reading as a hobby, particularly the fantasy genre as a means of both entertainment and an escape. Michael also has a certain fondness for birds. After all, they too live in the air, so he feels a certain kinship with them. This feeling of kinship only grew with his mutation.
Job or part time job and description: None at the moment.
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: His main fear is having too much hope, because he knows when that happens, he’s vulnerable to feeling despair if something goes wrong, which in his experience, usually does. Another main fear of his is rejection and betrayal. The trauma from being rejected by his close friends and boyfriend has caused him to be both withdrawn and ashamed of his mutation. On a smaller scale, while he doesn’t have a fear of heights, he does have a fear of losing control, of having his actions be dictated by some otherworldly power. It’s because of this that he chooses to push his own wheelchair as opposed to letting someone else push it or having motor controls installed on the wheelchair.
Special talents: While he no longer has the capacity for amazing aerial stunts, his body is still quite flexible, and he can bend and twist his upper body just fine, and raise his legs slightly, about a couple inches high, with his hips. He also still retains the knowledge that an acrobat would need, which could be useful during flight. Keyword being could.
Morality
Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: Neutral. Michael knows that reality isn’t always black and white. While he has a caring heart and usually does things morally right, he knows that’s not always going to be possible. So instead, he errs on the side of neutrality, choosing to accept the world as it is.
Mutations
Mutation description:Angel Wings: His primary mutation comes in the form of a pair of white bioluminescent wings that span about 15 feet from wingtip to wingtip that grow out from his shoulder blades, giving him the appearance of a bonafide angel. They can be shrunken down and retracted into a feathery growth on his back when not in use, allowing him to remain inconspicuous as long as his back is covered.
Built for Flight: Michael’s body is also equipped for flight, and incorporates some avian physiology. Most notable is that his bones are hollow, making him a lot lighter than an average boy of his build and age. He hasn’t fully developed yet, but he also has a slightly higher resistance to air and wind pressure.
Bioluminescence: For some reason or another, Michael’s wings aren’t just white. They glow. This is most visible in complete darkness, where they provide a dim brilliance. Not enough to illuminate a whole room, but you can clearly see the wings and whatever is within a few inches of them.
Strengths:The wings, though still new and their growth slowed by Michael’s spinal injury, are still strong enough to carry him in the air for about two hours nonstop. Besides,
he can fly. That’s the main selling point, and a bigger one as well given he’s stuck in a wheelchair.
His wings can also act as a pseudo-flashlight. While their glow isn’t as strong as a fully functioning flashlight, they’re still noticeable under near to complete darkness, and can dimly illuminate things slightly within a few inches of them. So they can help in a pinch.
Weaknesses and Limitations:However, because he has near no leg function, and since his legs will dangle down while in flight unless he’s going so fast the momentum keeps his legs afloat, he can’t fly forward very easily, instead having to move diagonally up then glide diagonally down to get anywhere. This brings his overall flight speed down in addition to limiting him to really just flying up into the air and then gliding down. In other words, he’s still crippled in the air.
While Michael does have a body built for flight, and has resistance to certain harsher flight conditions, they haven’t been quite fully developed as he hasn’t flown quite nearly enough to develop his resistance. This leaves him with a stronger than normal resistance, yet at the same time not making him completely invulnerable to friction or pressure generated by high speeds or altitude. Flying in harsher conditions such as a storm or at high altitudes can still disorient him.
Another weakness of his is that to have his wings function they need to be let free. Usually, if need be, they can still burst through t-shirts and some jackets, but for thicker material, like parkas or trench coats, his wings can and will get stuck and he won’t be able to use them.
Furthermore, if they’re bound by rope or something similar, they’re not strong enough to break through and he will be grounded. They’re only strong enough to lift him into the air, and even then, he still needs to push off with his hips and arms, given he can’t just jump.
One final weakness is that he can’t exactly turn the glowing off. His wings will glow whether he likes them or not, and they don’t just fade into his body when dormant, either. So he has to take precautions to remain inconspicuous, like wearing light-colored tops, and loose clothing so as to now create a noticeable bulge on his back.
Physical Abilities
General Physical Capabilities: He’s a former gymnast. This means he’s very flexible, and he’s strong enough pack a somewhat decent punch. However, he’s also a cripple, which still severely limits his options physically.
Fighting Style: Well, he’s sitting down, giving him full access to his aggressor’s lower body. Wheels ramming into their shin or just a good ol’ punch to the groin will go a long way to catching them off guard. He’s not above fighting dirty, either. Though, usually that would be the extent of it, since he has no formal combat training or martial arts training either. So usually he would try and get away while begrudgingly flying...slowly...away as well.
Fighting Style Pros/Cons:He can catch someone off guard by attacking them from a wheelchair.
Again, he’s crippled, so there’s not much he can do in the way of ground escape, and flight escape isn’t very reliable either, since he does need sufficient time to lift off. Basically, he’s as good as dead meat in an actual fight.
History Of Your Character
What use are legs if I can’t walk? What use are wings if I’ll just be brought down?Once upon a time, an angel plopped down from the heavens. Perhaps not literally...yet...but it certainly was cause for celebration when happily-wed couple Luis Santos, a well-off accountant and Delilah Santos, a passionate photographer, learned that the latter was pregnant. Fast forward to the third day of May in the year 2001, and they both had a baby boy: Michael. Their family and friends were delighted. The couple was ecstatic. It didn’t take long either for them to have another child on the way: Michael’s younger sister, Rachel.
Michael’s childhood was like most children’s. He grew up in a close-knit neighborhood in Philadelphia, raised by a loving family. Even though both of his parents were Christian, they encouraged him to believe whatever he wanted. Since he didn’t really know much else, he stuck with their Christian faith. He didn’t find it hard to make friends, either. He was a lovable ball of energy, always up for a game of ball or simply just running around aimlessly in the field. Ever since he could remember, Michael was always the athletic type.
Michael’s mother was a photographer, and had a particular fondness for birds, which she inevitably brought onto her two children. While geeky Rachel came to appreciate the more scientific aspects of avian biology and aerodynamics, Michael was more enticed by the physical wonders of flight. The giddy little child in him was obsessed with flying.
This wish became cemented when the boy watched a live aerial performance at a nearby amusement park.
“I wanna be just like them!” he had chirped to his parents as they drove back home. His sister scoffed instead, instead going on and on about the ridiculous amounts of training and effort that the performers had put in to get to where they were. But that didn’t matter to Michael. He was adamant about his newfound dream, and after a while, when they realized this was no joke, his parents decided to support him by letting him go to gymnastics classes.
At first, he wanted to cry.
It was definitely tough going into gymnastics, then aerial acrobatics, then actual performances. Even though Michael had the advantage, given his light bone structure and a knack for being airborne, he still had to work hard. It wasn’t just training, either. There was making sure he had a healthy diet, getting rest all on top of balancing school and the ever-growing social life of a middle schooler. Gymnastics was a lot tougher than he’d bargained for. The boy was free to drop out whenever he wanted, but he refused to give up. He was full of hope. So he worked even harder, and he had support too. Even his close friends gave him their help and supported him during competitions and performances. In time, he was able to rise from a complete newbie to a skilled, some might even say talented acrobat.
His life was on the right track. Once he was fifteen, he could see the rest of his life unfold. Get through the last few years of high school, enter an aerialist’s college, possibly with a scholarship, graduate from there and be well on his way to a smooth adulthood. While he wasn’t the popular kid, he at least had a decently sized friend group who he got along with, who all appreciated him. One of them in particular, Jason, and Michael were very close. Extremely close. So close that they ended up dating each other.
Yes, Michael was gay. At first he was nervous about telling people, but as it were nobody was really bothered. His family was a good one. His friends just as good. At this point, Michael was at his peak. He felt like nothing could stop him.
Until that fateful day.
It was just like any other trapeze stunt for a community performance, and had it gone differently, it would’ve just blurred into memory. All Michael had to do was go through the motions like he’d practiced. It was simple. So simple. He even had a net, so what could have possibly gone wrong?
Bad luck. Bad luck happened. Was stress from academics? Was it the brighter than usual lights? The added pressure from scouts being in the audience, maybe. Perhaps it was simply a technical malfunction with the suspension beams. All Michael knew was that he was plummeting straight down into the ground. It happened in about three seconds, but for him it was like three hours. You’d think at this point he’d manifest his mutation. The conditions were perfect. He was in puberty. He was falling. He was in danger.
Instead he bounced off the net.
And crashed onto the cold hard ground.
The next thing he knew, Michael was waking up in a hospital bed, surrounded by all his loved ones. They put on concerned but relieved faces. They were happy he was alive. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t feel his legs. The fall had, fortunately, not been bad enough to kill him, but it left him with a severe spinal cord injury that would leave him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He spent the better part of three months wallowing in depression, because just lost a huge chunk of his life and who he was.
Thankfully, he had his friends and family, who still supported him. He still had his boyfriend, who cared for him. So he decided to work on rehabilitation. He couldn’t walk and was forever confined to a wheelchair, but at least he could stay healthy. That much he could take control of. Despite it all, though, he still yearned to be in the air. He constantly prayed for it. Prayed to God for something,
anything.
Then, after a while Michael started to feel spasms and chronic pains all over his back. It got so bad he barely got any sleep. Eventually, he had to be taken to the hospital again, where he and his family found out that these pains were not in fact related to his injury, but was a mutation.
He had grown wings.
He was overjoyed. This was what he was asking for all his life. It was a gift from the universe. A miracle. He had hope again. Despite his parent’s and sister’s warnings, he decided to show his newfound wings off. Of course, he knew people were cautious of mutants, he wasn’t an ignorant idiot. But he was a literal angel! Who wouldn’t think that was cool? So he practiced flying. He worked on it just the same as acrobatics. Even though he discovered that without the use of his legs, he could only really fly upwards or glide down, or move in erratic flight patterns to go forward, at least it was something. It was better than being stuck in a wheelchair.
Once he’d brought his flight capabilities up to a presentable level, Michael called all the people in his social circle together for the big reveal. Once all eyes were on him, he took off his shirt and unveiled his wings, flapping until he was hovering in the air. At first they were shocked, and reasonably so. Michael expected that, but in no time at all they would be cheering.
They didn’t. They deemed him a freak and turned away. They all did. Those who were unsure still sided with the majority, fearing prejudice themselves. In the end it was just him and Jason as Michael fluttered down, landing awkwardly into his wheelchair. Even if they all rejected him at least his boyfriend would accept him, he had thought. He was close to breaking down but he was still hopeful. Then Jason, too, left, unable to bring himself to be with a mutant.
So that was it. Michael went home and bawled his eyes out that night, and spent the next year being ridiculed for his mutation. Knowledge spread, and it spread fast. Depression too, spread quickly. Michael was by no means bad at school. He was pretty decent, but over time his grades began to plummet and he slowly transitioned into the person he is today. He was numb and aching and emotional and emotionless all at the same time. At one point he pondered just cutting his wings off, saving him from the utter shame every time he felt those feathers on his back. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He resolved to keep them as a permanent reminder of how cruel reality could be.
After a while, his parents decided to pull him out from school. It clearly wasn’t doing anything for him, anyway, and instead suggested he went to the Institute. At this point, their neighborhood wasn’t a good fit for him. At first he was against the idea of moving away, or rather, he saw no point. He was still a cripple with nothing going for him except for a pair of useless wings.
In the end, it was his sister that persuaded him, or rather knocked some sense into him. It was a short process, they contacted the school, filled out the necessary paperwork and Michael found himself being whisked away. No, that wasn’t quite right. He decided to go on his own, on his wheelchair and some bags to New York.
Not for some cheesy new beginning, nor some emotional journey. But just to make sure his family stopped worrying about him.
Roleplay
What’s your OOC alias?: Whiskers
Where did you learn about this site?: Google, I think.
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Nope, this is my first.
Sample RP:“What the hell happened to you?”
Michael’s head was still ringing, and his arms barely pulling him along into his home’s living room. His vision was slightly blurred, the only images presented to him being a mishmash of browns, whites and greens in some strange watercolor splatter. Only when he finally felt soft but firm hands gripping his shoulders did he realize his younger sister was talking, no, shrieking at him.
“Mike! You’re covered in scrapes!” she continued to exclaim, turning his face this way and that, checking his arms and the very contraption he was sitting on. “What happened?”
“I fell,” he blurted. Yes, that was it, he remembered. He fell. No, not quite right. He chose to fall.
“You fell?” she echoed. “Were your wings not working? Did you lose balance? What happened? You know you can tell me anything.”
“It’s just the same old, same old,” he said, trying to wheel away. The wheels stayed in place.
“Bullies? Again?” she groaned. “This is bad. Now they’re getting physical.”
“I told you, it’s no big deal.”
“It is!” she exclaimed again. Rachel was loud. “Jesus Christ, you need to go to the Institute at this rate.”
“What? That La La Land so I can be all buddy buddy with other freaks like me?” his tone grew bitter then. “I’d rather be beaten to death. Maybe I can help improve their boxing skills by being an actual human punching bag.”
“Stop it,” she snapped. “You are still a person. Mom, Dad and I all still love you.”
“No, I’m not,” Michael laughed. “I’m a broken human. And I’m an even more worthless mutant. I have nothing. I
am nothing.”
“Fine,” she let go of the wheelchair, brushing away a few loose tears. “Maybe you are worthless the way you are now. But at the very least go to New York, so Mom and Dad don’t have to break down inside seeing you come home torn apart every day.”
With that, she stormed back down the hallway, the slam of a door echoing back out in her wake.
Michael just looked on, stunned. It was true, he was hurting them just by living his life. And he couldn’t just end it, that would just break them. No, he had to do something else. At least, at least he could go to this Institute they told him about. That way, they would stop worrying. Even if it changed nothing.
Because he knew it wouldn’t. Not for him, anyway.
