Individual
Character's full name: Casper Woods Garcia
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: Graffiti
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Date of Birth: 02/14/2002
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: Houston, Texas
Nationality: American
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage:
Mexican and African American
Appearance
Hair color and style: He has naturally curly black hair that he dyes blond. He keeps the sides and the back of his head shaved down.
Skin Tone: Light brown
Eye Color: Hazel
Height: 5'8
Build: Casper has a svelte build; he's tone and lanky. Despite not being very tall his hands and feet are quite large and look disproportional to his body. This isn't due to a mutation. They're just naturally that large.
Visible mutation: Starting from his navel and encompassing his entire stomach is a dark black spiral. It swirls outward counterclockwise.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: He has a stud in each earlobe and a bar in his right eyebrow. His parents don't know this, but Casper has multiple tattoos down his left arm. Tattoos: The letters SPQR, an eagle, a crocodile, a horse, an ox, a dolphin, an elephant, and two lions.
Other features: N/A
Everyday clothing style: Before he discovered binders and packers Casper dressed in baggy jeans and shirts, normally two sizes too big, and an ever present hat to achieve if not a masculine form than at least a gender neutral one. He's updated his style since then. He owns several binders and
packers and he will not leave his bedroom without them on under his clothes. He favors relaxed fit jeans and graphic tees and hoodies that usually depict how much a nerd he is for sci-fi, fantasy, and anime.
Uniform: N/A
Sleepwear: Socks, pajama bottoms and a white crew shirt. Nothing fancy.
Miscellaneous clothing: As stated earlier Casper will not leave his room without a binder and packer on. His binder completely flattens his chest while his packer is also a stand-to-pee and serves two purposes. The prosthetic gives him a bulge in his pants and the ability to use a urinal.
Character
Personality: On a first meeting Casper seems shy and awkward. He is unapologetically arrogant in the fields he excels in, but in social settings where he has to interact with others he reverts to a less sure of himself introverted nerd. Once he's gotten to know a person and he's comfortable with them that cockiness comes back. He's naturally introverted and a constant fear of being shunned for being trans makes him keep most people at a polite distance. Physically regardless of whether it's a full blown hug or just a hand on the shoulder Casper enjoys the contact. Mentally though he's so uncomfortable with his body that even if the person hugging him is his own mother he'll tense up and count the seconds until he has personal space again. The only time touching isn't an issue is when he initiates the contact.
Hobbies/ Interests: He's a fairly decent singer and he loves to play the guitar, but he was never formally taught. When he plays it is entirely by ear because he doesn't know how to read sheet music. Casper is an avid free runner as it combines the only two sports he was ever any really good at,
gymnastics and track. He also spends probably more than a healthy amount of time playing video games and reading comic books. He finds
shows about nature, ancient civilizations, biology, historical figures and events and basically anything informational fascinating. All of Casper's tattoos are on his left arm because he did them himself. He's an amateur tattoo artist (his mother doesn't know that either, no one tell her).
Job or part time job and description: N/A
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Frogs (those giant eyes creep him out), clowns (he's never seen It, but he still finds them plenty scary), and manikins and giant statues of humans (he had reoccurring nightmares of being attack by both of those things as a child). Casper is transgender and while the teachers are in the know hiding his biological sex from others, classmates included, is a never ending source of anxiety for him. He feels a mild bit of embarrassment over the fact that while he can understand Spanish just fine, other than a handful of sentences, he can't speak it and he can't read it all.
Special talents: He's a runner and a gymnast and with the extra physicality of free running factored in he's added climbing to his repertoire.
Morality
Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: Casper thinks of himself as a good person. He has his bouts of pettiness, selfishness, and he can hold a grudge like nobody's business, but he's hardly one to act with malicious intent for the fun of it.
Mutations
Mutation description:
Depictukinesis
Artistic Intuition: Before his mutation activated the extent of Casper’s artistic skill was singing and playing the guitar. His drawing prowess was limited to stick figures, but now he has the ability to create visual art as well. The exact medium that he uses is irrelevant. His intuition works on everything from chalk, charcoal, clay, and yarn to paint and ink.
Strengths: Even if he's never used the material before and has no training in it this power imbues his hands with an unnatural talent to turn the images in his head into an exact physical replica.
Weaknesses and Limitations: Casper's intuition cannot be turned off. His dreams are seldom anything else but the artwork he, not just wants to, but needs to create. His hands can't be idle. He has to create artwork and he physically cannot go an entire day without allowing at least one image in his mind to manifest in the real world. If he attempts to suppress this drive he essentially experiences withdrawal. He gets the shakes, he starts sweating, his heart rate goes into overdrive, and he'll even vomit.
Melanokinesis
Artistic intuition is a passive mutation in the context of both defense and offense, but without it his second mutation would not function. Depictukinesis mutated his mind. Melanokinesis mutated his body.
Absorption: Casper's body houses a second circulatory system that runs alongside the one he was born with. What pumps through this second system is not blood, but ink and instead of going through his heart the ink is pumped to a small bladder half the size of his kidneys located directly underneath the spiral on his stomach. The veins in this second system are completely closed off from the rest of his organs with the exception of his body's largest one, his skin.
He didn't come by this ink naturally. He can't create it so his body has to get its fix another way. It accomplishes this through absorption. Whether it's fresh ink, dried ink, squid ink, tattoo ink, or ink from a ballpoint pen with skin contact he can draw it into his body. The more ink he absorbs the darker the spiral on his stomach becomes. It indicates how much ink he has in supply. When he's running low the color in the spiral fades to an ashy gray. Casper can hold no more than nineteen gallons worth of ink in his body.
Animation:The word shabti means “answerer” and historically shabti were servants made from clay. Normally these servants are made with some form of imperfection because the belief is that if a shabti is made perfect it will come alive and kill you. Although they are not made of clay when Casper adds his blood to his ink art it becomes a shabti. Just a drop is needed to animate his art which he usually accomplishes by biting his thumb to break the skin. The size and strength of a shabti is determined by how much ink is used in its creation. Doodled shabti, which are images of animals drawn without using his body as the canvas, will never be very big or strong as the ink that was used to draw them is all that is available to animate them. Tattooed shabti have access to the ink supply stored in Casper's body so he can grow them to be several times larger than their artistic representation. When a shabti is destroyed it dissolves into a puddle of ink.
Strengths:
Absorption: Fortunately for Casper he can control his absorption and he doesn't just suck ink up whenever he touches it. Nineteen gallons of ink adds quite a few pounds of liquid weight to Casper's body. At least a gallon of that ink is constantly being cycled through him. The majority rests within his second bladder in a compacted dense mass.
Animation: Casper's tattoos aren't just something nice to look at. The animals are weapons. Unlike the ink art drawn on paper because they are permanently inked into his skin and already exposed to his blood he doesn't need to add more blood to animate them. He just needs to will them into existence. As long as he continues to absorb ink to replenish his supply the ink in his tattoos will never fade so he doesn't need to continually tattoo himself.
As stated earlier how much strength a shabti has is determined by how big it is and Casper makes a shabti large by infusing an image with more ink than what was used to draw said image, but this technique can only be applied to art that he's tattooed to his body. He instinctively pours in just enough ink to make his shabti at least as strong as their real world counterparts, but if he has the ink to spare he can bump them up another level. Compared to their real world counterparts the shabti are very light, but they're more durable. Shabti are resistant to blunt force and sharp objects. Being made of ink they have no bones that can be shattered and no vital organs that can be damaged so they simply absorb the impact for blunt force or part and then reconnect to let blades pass through.
Because he can make them life sized his tattooed shabti are both more versatile and more routinely used to
the point that it is almost exclusive. This familiarity has compelled Casper to name each of his tattooed shabti, with the notable exception of the dolphin (it's called He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named). Just like the historical clay shabti each animal is drawn with a slight imperfection to look distinctly different from its real life counterpart.
Tattooed Shabti:
Fulminata [Eagle]: Fulminata when animated is twice the size of a normal eagle. Casper draws him with a feathery head crest like a cockatoo.
Sobek [Crocodile]: From tip to tail Sobek is eleven feet, but Casper draws him to stand upright with thick stocky legs and long gangly arms. He hunches instead of standing straight which puts his height at a little under six feet. The rest is all tail.
Blackjack [Horse]: Casper calls Blackjack a horse, but because he drew a horn on the horse's head it's obviously a unicorn. He just refuses to call it one.
Babe [Ox]: If he were able to create shabti with color Babe would be blue, but since he can't he gave the ox six legs instead.
Darkness and Night [Lions]: Were it not for their forked tails and the fact that they're gray scaled like all his shabti they would look no different from regular lions.
Hannibal [Elephant]: Though his appearance is modeled after the African elephant Hannibal is actually half the size of a bull male. Half the size is as big as Casper can possibly make him as his body simply can't hold the amount of ink that would be needed to make him bigger. The elephant is drawn with integrated armor as a nod to the actual war elephants used by Hannibal.
Weaknesses and Limitations:
Absorption: When his spiral turns ashy gray it indicates that he's low on ink which means he's down to half a gallon. A Casper who is low on ink is lethargic, sore, hungry, and extremely thirsty. Unfortunately no amount of food, rest, or water will alleviate those symptoms. He has to absorb more ink. His ability to absorb is topical only. He cannot drink ink or inject it into his bloodstream. It would actually be toxic to him if he did
that. The veins in his second circulatory system are only slightly more durable than his original ones. Being hit with enough force to cause bruising only effects his original system, but deep cuts can penetrate both and though ink will clot faster he will bleed it as well as blood. Severe internal damage to either of his circulatory systems that causes hemorrhage if not caught and fixed in time can be deadly. He's not just in danger of bleeding out. Ink spilling out to his internal organs will poison him. Though his body shows no outward change a completely full ink bladder adds 160 pounds to his weight. His weight will fluctuate depending on how much ink he's currently holding.
Animation: He can only animate artwork created entirely in ink. The ink's colors don't matter, but when he animates ink the shabti come in one color scheme only, black and gray. Reality places a limit on Casper's shabti. If some variation of the drawing doesn't exist outside of his imagination it still won't exist once he animates it. Lions don't have forked tails, but because they exist at all Darkness and Night can exist as well. Dragons, however,\ don't exist period, so if he animates a drawing of one all he's doing is making pretty three dimensional art. When he animates doodled drawings their image fade from the paper they're drawn on. Regardless of whether a shabti has been destroyed or he simply doesn't need it anymore it won't reappear on whatever he drew it on. To be reused a drawn shabti must be redrawn.
Unless they're destroyed or he reabsorbs them back into his body his shabti can last for two weeks before they start to degrade. Because they are made entirely of ink his shabti dissolve in water so he is completely useless when it rains. He found that out the hard way when he animated the dolphin shabti (it was a disaster, don't ask). The rate at which the shabti dissolve depends on how much ink was used to animate them. A shabti animated from a drawing on a piece of paper dissolves almost instantly. Sobek would melt at the rate of a cubic foot per minute. In roughly two minutes the bipedal crocodile will be nothing more than a puddle. The notably smaller Fulminata dissolves in a third of that time. Because his tattooed shabti consume so much ink once animated he can't have more than two of them in existence. Hannibal and Sobek, however, are so massive that if he animates just one of them he can't animate any other tattooed shabti.
Because he can't infuse ink into doodled shabti they are rather small and weak when animated. They're more of a distraction or personal gophers than anything else, but his shabti both doodled and tattooed have the same weaknesses. Water isn't the only element that takes a toll on the shabti. Extreme heat will dry the ink out and the shabti will crumble to dust. On the opposite end of the spectrum because shabti can't regulate their temperature extreme cold will completely freeze them. Naturally venomous animals like snakes and spiders might seem like they would make good doodled offensive shabti because they wouldn't require much ink to animate, but they have little practical use. Because they are made of ink while they can bite or sting they don't produce real venom. They would just inject ink into whomever they attacked and it's in such a small quantity that unless that person has an allergic reaction it won't do much harm.
Control is a funny thing when it comes to his shabti. Every shabti that Casper creates is drawn to preform a specific task. They lack free will and don't experience fear or pain. Once animated they can only take actions that are directly related to completing that specific task. For example Blackjack was created solely to be ridden for transportation. He'll defend himself, because he can't be ridden if he's destroyed, but he won't attack anyone unless Casper gives him a direct order to do so. Sobek was created to be nothing more than an attack dog and that's all he'll do unless ordered otherwise. He won't even stop attacking unless Casper tells him to.
Physical Abilities
General Physical Capabilities: Years of gymnastics and running track have given Casper a lean body with flexibility, balance, and stamina in spades.
Fighting Style: Casper wasn't an amazing fighter before his mutation activated. He was more of a scrapper than a brawler and there was little in the way of skill with how he fought. It was mostly throwing haymakers and jabs and he wasn't above using the closest blunt object. He fought dirty and as long as he came out standing he was proud of it. That fighting style hasn't really changed now that he's a mutant. In fact he's more apt to attack a single opponent with an overwhelming force of ink to put them down hard and fast.
Fighting Style Pros/Cons: Without his ink at best he's average so someone with real training could easily take him out.
History Of Your Character
Jamie Garcia and Angelina Woods met and became instant best friends at the age of ten. By high school they had progressed from friends to dating and after graduating they were living together. It wasn't long after this that their first and only child Charity Woods Garcia was born. By the time Charity was four her parents had had an amicable split and while Jamie remained in Charity's life Angelina raised her as a single parent.
From a young age Charity felt that something wasn't right with how she saw herself and how the world viewed her. One of the times she can remember being confronted with this was at the age of eight when she had a month long stand off with her mother on taking karate classes instead of ballet. It wasn't the first time they had clashed on such things. The previous year Angelina had to bribe her daughter to get her to wear skirts and dresses at least twice a week (Charity went back on that deal two weeks later and her mother accepted her defeat on the dresses front). The Barbie dolls and baby dolls she'd buy for her daughter over the years always mysteriously disappeared, but Charity had a G.I Joe she'd gotten from a yard sale that she carted with her everywhere. When it came to the karate classes Angelina put her foot down declaring them to be an inappropriate activity for her young daughter. She enrolled Charity into ballet instead, but the girl was a terrible ballerina (due entirely to not even trying). Being allowed to switch to gymnastics was a compromise. Charity loved the physical activity and though she hated and felt horribly uncomfortable in the leotards it was better than the tutus.
This uncomfortableness with being forced into stereotypical girl roles or just being seen as a girl plagued Charity until at the age of eleven she learned not only the name for how she felt, but that there were things she could do about it. Charity had Gender Identity Dysphoria (GID), she wasn't a tomboy or a lesbian (although there was an attraction to girls). He was a boy trapped in a girl's body. At the onset neither Angelina or Jamie were very accepting of the revelation that Charity had come to, but after multiple therapy sessions over a year long period for all members of the family Casper Woods Garcia became their son.
Coming out as transgender to his parents was a freeing moment. Living that life was less so. Houston was certainly more progressive than other cities in Texas (or the south period), but Casper of course had to quit the girl's gymnastics team and he wasn't allowed to join the boy's team. He could use public restrooms without incident because to a random stranger he looked no different than any other preteen boy, but he was physically dragged out of and tossed from the boy's restroom at school by a couple of upperclassmen. At his refusal to go back to using the girl's restroom he was given the permission and key needed to access the single stall handicap restroom. Everyone who originally knew him as Charity either had a difficult time switching to thinking of him as Casper or flat out refused to try. He was involved in multiple fistfights and though he won a few every day was filled with a fear of getting jumped. Things improved somewhat with a transfer to a new school (he was a smidgen more excited about being allowed to start hormone replacement therapy). The staff had to be informed about his transgender status, but none of his classmates knew about him. While he still couldn't use the locker rooms (he had no desire to show anyone his body or see dudes naked) he was able to join the boy's gymnastics and track team.
Casper was well into his fifteenth year and two years on testosterone when his mutation activated. He wishes he could say it was some amazing event, but it was really mediocre. At first he didn't even know it was a mutation. Every morning for a solid week he'd wake up and be compelled to fill page after page with drawings. He started with a mechanical pencil and printer paper, but by the second week he'd bought charcoal pencils and a sketchbook. In the third week he'd progressed to acrylic paints and when he found himself spray painting the shed in week four he realized that he had a problem, but he couldn't stop. He tried to, but that only lasted for a day. After he barfed into the toilet six times he stopped trying to fight the desire to draw, grabbed a pen and doodled a mouse. After that day Casper realized that his new talent and the overwhelming need to draw was obviously a mutant power, but he thought it was a stupid one and not worthy of mentioning. For several months he tried to hide his mutation because being trans was enough as far as being different. He really didn't want to add being a mutant with a lame power on top of that.
Discovering he could animate his ink drawings was purely an accident. After the day of the six upchucks Casper had made a habit of keeping a legal pad and pen on him to doodle in his downtime. On that day he'd just given himself his weekly shot of testosterone, which normally is a quick and clean process, when he removed the needle from his thigh and a gush of blood followed it. Before he could wipe the blood up a few drops managed to land on his pad right on that first drawing of the mouse. A furry little creature made of ink emerged and scurried out of his bathroom before he could stop it. His mother's scream (because a mouse was in her kitchen) shocked him out of the stunned inaction he'd been sitting in and sent him running to her aid in his boxers. He caught the ink mouse easily and as soon as he laid his hands on it he absorbed it into his skin. That first absorption created the spiral on his stomach and it's been there ever since.
With the animation of the mouse Casper couldn't keep his mutation a secret any longer and he finally officially told his parents. They took it in stride. Accepting their transgender son took time, but ultimately it did nothing to change the fact that they had a wonderful child whom they loved and him also being a mutant certainly didn't change that. What it did change was his schooling. Casper wasn't exactly happy about transferring schools again, but even he has to admit that attending a school specifically for mutant children would benefit him.
Roleplay
What’s your OOC alias?: Ash
Where did you learn about this site?: The power of Google
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: And nope.
Sample RP:
Captain Fluffy was a silly name for a fish and when said fish was a betta fish the name seemed especially ill fitting. As he starred at the fish's feathery bright, blue fins Casper wasn't sure what he'd been thinking when he'd named the fish that. He couldn't even blame it on being young and stupid when he'd chosen that name. Captain Fluffy wasn't a pet he'd had for years. He wasn't even a pet that he'd had for a full day. The little fish was even still in his original container. Captain Fluffy had been a gift, given to him just an hour ago by his father as he'd bid his parents farewell at the terminal. They could have flown with him, had actually wanted to in fact, but saying goodbye at the airport had been hard enough. If they'd come with him to New York and stayed for a week while he got settled in at his new school the farewell would have been even worse.
He couldn't blame them for wanting to come. Had he been sending his only child who also happened to be mutant and transgender across the country to a boarding school he'd be experiencing his fair share of worry too. He'd transferred schools before, been allowed to start over where nobody knew him or his secrets, but this was different. His other classmates would be like him, at least on the mutant front, and maybe that would make it easier to finally be himself. He was feeling optimistic about it. He'd make friends. He was sure of it and maybe, just maybe, his future girlfriend was in New York. It could happen!
“Ready for this, Captain Fluffy?” There was no visible reaction from Captain Fluffy. The fish wiggled a little, but that was probably due to him jostling the container. Casper was going to pretend that was an affirmative acknowledgment. Perhaps that name did fit.
Welcome aboard~ 
