Mask or Menace Application
Apr. 20th, 2014 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khajidont〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Fey
AGE: 21
JOURNAL: [Bad username or unknown identity: ”thewordweaves”]
IM / EMAIL: AIM: Feyrae3
PLURK: Feygasm
RETURNING: New Player!
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Jaime Reyes. For those of you that are reading this, yes, that's J-A-I-M-E! It's actually pronounced Hye-mee or Hye-may depending on who you ask, and not like that Game of Thrones character. I know, Jaime Lannister's totally messed this up for everyone.
CHARACTER AGE: 16
SERIES: DC Comics (Blue Beetle)
CHRONOLOGY: After Blue Beetle 25
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: I’ll go for random selection!
BACKGROUND:
Jaime Reyes' life started out simply, just another normal childhood in a normal family in El Paso, for a given value of normal. In his world, superheroes and supervillains were simply a matter of course, and all the oddities that came with it were simply a fact of life. Nevertheless, such things were as distant to Jaime as politics, a far off thing that got a whole lot of airtime, but didn’t do too much to directly impact his life. Most people would have called Jaime's life better than most, considering he lived in quiet happiness surrounded by good friends and a family that loved him and that he loved in return. It wasn't perfect, but it was a whole lot closer than most people ever got.
Of course, his family and friends didn't change - he did. As he was walking to school one day, he came across the scarab - a piece of technology created by aliens called the Reach with a long-standing vendetta against the intergalactic peacekeeping force known as the Green Lanterns - and, thinking that it was little more than an amusing trinket, picked it up and brought it home with him. When he went to bed that night, the scarab fused itself to his spine and with it came a host of new powers, responsibilities, and above all else, new problems. His new condition first made itself known via nightmares and an acquaintanceship with the local gang of metahumans involving a misunderstanding due to the suit's initial tendency to go on the attack without consulting the human that happened to be wearing it. He did not, however, have a long time to process this before Booster Gold (superhero, model, and toothpaste mascot extraordinaire) appeared in his bedroom, blindfolded him and whisked him off to the Batcave in order to make use of the unique technology fused to his spine in order to locate a satellite involved in a convoluted nefarious plot. With that explained to him, it was only a matter of time before he was launched into space with the Justice League and off to apparently save the world. One crash course with Jaime as an incredibly reluctant student later, their mission was complete. Unfortunately, the scarab didn't appear to get the memo and, reacting in a defensive maneuver against the Green Lanterns on their side, slipped Jaime into the Bleed in space to escape from them. The Bleed is a space in between universes, suspended in space and time. Having rendered him invisible, Jaime could only watch as the rest of the Justice League returned to Earth and left him trapped in space, utterly alone.
After what felt like a few minutes in space but was actually a year on Earth, Jaime plummeted back onto Earth only to have the scarab's aversion to Green Lanterns reaffirmed in the way of an instinctive attack by one of the Green Lanterns that hadn't accompanied him to the satellite: Guy Gardner. Guy eventually ended his attack once it was revealed that Jaime was little more than an incredibly terrified sixteen-year old who was having the mother of all bad days, but sadly left Jaime to find his way back home alone. He did eventually find his way back home with the help of a kind stranger and crawled through the window with the hopes of avoiding worrying his mother... only to roll into his little sister, who had commandeered his room during his year-long absence. While this was the point at which many superheroes began the long path of concealing their identities, Jaime did what most kids who were close to their families would do and promptly told his family everything. Their initial reaction may have left something to be desired but they (and Jaime's best friends, who he also told as soon as he could) quickly adapted to the situation. A few obligatory visits to the doctor later, Jaime began trying to figure out what to do with his life - without the help of the folks who abandoned him up in space. His first step was to contact the Posse, the metahuman gang he had an involuntary skirmish with a year prior, who made him aware of La Dama, the local crime lord, and her tendency to dip into the metahuman population to whisk them away to what could be described as both a prison and a refugee camp.
As luck would have it, La Dama turned out to be the legal guardian and aunt of Brenda, one of Jaime's best friends, and both of their secret identities were revealed once Jaime crashed the camp. Some metahumans chose to stay in the camp as a safe refuge, others chose to leave with Jaime, but whatever the result, Jaime and La Dama were now aware of one another and settled on a tentative truce. With no more answers than before, an ex-superhero known by the name of Peacemaker made his presence known and helpfully clarified a few things to Jaime: the scarab in his spine was made of alien technology, and it was incredibly dangerous. A couple of history lessons and skirmishes and environmental disasters later, Jaime and Peacemaker found themselves face to face with the makers of Jaime's scarab themselves: the Reach. The Reach's representative, known only as the Negotiator, gave the false explanation that the scarab was merely meant to attach to a host to make itself known when a world's technology reached a certain point so that the Reach could swoop in and save the world from itself (false) and that Jaime's scarab was malfunctioning due to overexposure to magic (ostensibly true to a point). While the Reach successfully introduced themselves as friendly strangers to the world at large, they didn't manage to keep up the pretense of friendliness towards Jaime for long, implanting scarabs into the citizens of El Paso as an experiment and leaving Jaime to attempt to neutralize them without any casualties. Jaime managed the job by communicating directly with the other scarabs, but was ultimately left without any evidence of the Reach's ulterior motives to bring to the authorities.
Later on, with the help of Guy, (with whom he was able to establish a decent relationship with after their misunderstanding was cleared up vis a vis Jaime's mother's excellent grasp on making stupid men listen to her) Jaime discovered an illegal facility of the Reach in the South Pole along with proof that they were fraternizing with Earth's supervillains. Once again, the Reach's superior technology came in handy for the wrong guys, and all evidence was neatly covered up, but Jaime did get one thing out of it beyond his own personal proof: Blue Beetle II's diary as a present from Guy Gardner, a future source of endless inspiration for the boy carrying on the late hero's legacy.
To take a short detour from the main plot of the Reach’s imminent infiltration of Earth, Jaime’s next adventure had relevance not because of the importance of his actions (though having a hand in defeating Eclipso, an evil agent of God, in order to save a baby was an impressive sounding feat) but because it was the introduction of his magical sort-of-girlfriend, Traci 13. Essentially, Traci 13 arrived in Jaime’s garage to fetch him as an assist for defeating Eclipso, who had taken the baby of two members of the Posse in order to use its latent magical abilities for her own gains. Jaime charged in like all good heroes trying to impress incredibly attractive girls did and Eclipso, doubtlessly thinking herself very clever, turned Jaime into his ultimate power fantasy to vanquish his friends and allies.
As it turned out, Jaime was one superhero who really, really did not want to be a superhero, and his ultimate power fantasy was to become a dentist so that he could make enough money to pay off his parents’ mortgage and put his little sister through college. Needless to say, a good whallop on the head ended this innocuous version of Jaime, the baby was rescued, and Jaime was pretty thrilled to gain Traci’s affection.
More evidence for the Reach’s malicious nature kicked back into high gear the very next issue, in which Nathan Drake (a man for hire) created a hurricane along the Yucatan Coast, telling Jaime that he was operating on orders from Jaime’s own supposed bosses in order to spread water molecules across the land. There were only two things that Jaime knew about this encounter, but these were two very important things: the first was that the Reach had somehow tinkered with Earth’s water on a molecular basis via their alien tech and the second, more important fact for Jaime, was that in order to achieve their goals, people died.
The next step in the Reach’s infiltration was a truce with Sinestro - the leader of the yellow lanterns which can succinctly be described as evil green lanterns - after which they took control of Jaime’s mentor, Peacemaker, and equipped him with both a scarab and a yellow power ring. Faced with this dire combination, Jaime ended up hacking into the opponent scarab with the help of another green lantern in order to unleash Peacemaker’s mind from their hold and to allow him to save himself. With the yellow lanterns’ hold fading, Peacemaker took matters into his own hands, gouging the scarab out of his spine with the very weaponry the scarab bestowed upon him. Though he lived, this essentially extracted Peacemaker's expert advice away from Jaime for the remainder of his run.
Jaime’s last step in gathering enough information to come to a conclusion about the Reach’s grand plan was to discover the Reach’s Earth base of operations, hidden in the quintessential villainous hiding spot of a volcano. There, he put everything together: the Reach had put molecules of mind control technology too small to detect inside of Earth’s water in order to make humankind susceptible over a century of breathing, drinking, and eating these products. Once this made humankind susceptible enough, they were to bring in an external force which they themselves created - and which Jaime discovered - to tear apart the Earth... at which point the Reach would save them and humankind would be grateful enough to bow down to their reign. Acknowledging the cruelty of an artificially made creature with false memories of a life and people that he had once cherished, Jaime allowed the creature to find a merciful death in the volcano once the Reach’s probes came to destroy the evidence. With all the pieces put together, Jaime and the scarab announced their intentions to the Reach: they were coming.
Without enough evidence to go to the government or even to the rest of the superheroes (save for Batman, who was paranoid enough to trust in Jaime’s words), Jaime bid his farewells to his family and went to confront the Reach with an incredibly risky plan under his belt. Using the Reach’s own abilities to obscure their movements from sight and the tenuous nature between time and space bleed, Jaime essentially appeared in three places so quickly that it may have well been at the same time in order to triangulate the mothership’s location. Victory!
Or, rather, temporary victory as the Negotiator ripped Jaime’s scarab out of his back and tossed him into a jail cell without any clothes, as seems to be the usual in Jaime’s series. Luckily, he had some knowledge of the Reach’s tech prior to his arrival and knew the language needed to get out of his jail cell, into a pair of pants and then out, out and away to the mothership’s engine room. He bluffed that he intended to overload the engines and typed a random sequence of numbers into the engine’s computers to incite panic in the Reach - and to buy him some time as they agonized over interpreting it. Trapped once again on his knees, he said the magic words (also known as the scarab’s serial number: Khaji Da) and the scarab came zooming back to him. While Jaime was indisposed, he had managed to buy the scarab enough time to infiltrate the Reach’s files, send them to Batman’s satellites and to allow both Batman and Oracle to transmit the Reach’s invasion plans to every television set on Earth.
With all lost, the Negotiator reacted like a small child and insisted that if he couldn’t have the Earth, nobody could, and initiated a plan to destroy the Earth. Jaime followed and physically interrupted the circuitry (a fancy way of saying that he shoved his hands into a pile of live wires like the clever boy he is), perfectly willing to sacrifice his own life as the mothership exploded with him in it.
Happily, Jaime belonged to a superhero comic, which meant that Booster Gold nipped in there and yanked him back to Earth for the ensuing celebrations. With that done, Jaime returned to a fairly typical superhero life, beating up the occasional supervillain and dealing with the occasional fire, which was downright relaxing after dealing with the Reach.
This is where I’m taking him from in his own run, but just for posterity, I’ll note that he was simultaneously appearing in Teen Titans V3, for which I’m just going to link to wikipedia.
PERSONALITY:
The first thing that most people notice about Jaime is that he’s basically a good kid. The main reason why they notice this is that it’s essentially the truth; Jaime is the product of a strong upbringing and doesn’t have a delinquent bone in his body. He is, in whole, polite, honest, kind, moral and very earnest about the things that matter to him. The greatest power fantasy that he does have is to be successful enough with his studies to become a dentist with a high enough income to pay off his family’s mortgage and to pay for his younger sister’s college education. He may not be as unwavering in his belief in God as his father is, but his father’s lessons of mercy, forgiveness, responsibility and, occasionally, the need to kick ass have permanently stuck with him, and whether or not he’s actively aware of it, are lessons that he finds himself relying on time and time again. It may not always come to him naturally, but he’s careful to at least make an effort to remain conscientious of others - even after the shock of being gone for a year, he’s careful not to get too into himself and to instead consider how life had been like for those that he loved.
Despite having an alien killing machine to his spine, he’s so firm on his no-kill policy that with what may have very well been his dying breath, he offers the alien set on destroying the world his hand to save him. His sense of duty had been pronounced even before the events of his canon as seen by his insistent offers to help his father out at his garage, and this tendency has only grown along with his capabilities. He had never asked for the power that had been given to him, nor did he particularly want it, which is essentially why he has made a good hero out of himself. Without the latent thrill seeking and ego stroking tendencies that can be found in those leaping headfirst into danger, Jaime’s caution and level-headed nature along with his family and friends have allowed him to stay grounded in a flighty universe. He didn’t so much go into the superheroing profession as much as he had been very reluctantly pushed, which brings a certain clarity to the situation: he is who he is to help as much as he can, end of story. Once he comes to a decision, he knows he has to commit to it 100%. More importantly, he realizes that having his powers doesn’t change who he is as a person. No matter what happens to him, he will still have to ask his parents for permission before doing anything rash, he’s still expected to keep up his studies, and somewhere in there, he’s still plain old Jaime Reyes.
Being good, however, is not the same thing as being a pushover, and nice is not the same as stupid. Jaime may not do terribly well when placed underneath the public eye and underneath the scrutiny of those that he knows have authority over him - as seen in his inability to do much beyond stutter when cameras are turned on him - but he does have a mouth on him. He doesn’t take kindly to being taken advantage of and will actively work against those he feels hold all the cards when he has none. Even prior to gaining the scarab suit, he has no problems voicing his disrespect for the drunk in his father’s employ, nor does he hesitate to give a presumably dangerous gang lip if he feels it’s warranted. Though he’s not especially skilled at banter, he’s quick with a sarcastic quip and doesn’t bother holding back much of his irritation. His forthright nature has led him to expect the same from others despite all evidence to the contrary, which means that he’s not shy when it comes to demanding answers. It’s very difficult to make Jaime’s temper rise above mere annoyance, but when it does happen, he’s a force to be reckoned with. Circumstances coupled with his predecessor’s old journals have made Jaime resourceful when brute force simply isn’t the answer, and even if the outcome is unpleasant, he doesn’t hesitate to do what’s necessary. Unfortunately, this also comes with the fact that Jaime is often pretty impulsive, flinging himself into dangerous situations with the knowledge that his team and the scarab will have his back. He’s self-aware enough to know that he does some outrageous things in the name of his job, but goes ahead and does it anyway - in his mind, there really isn’t any alternative.
All in all, Jaime’s a pretty simple kid. He doesn’t let what his little sister refers to as his ‘job’ define his life - he’s a big dork when it comes down to it, and very little will change the fact that he still loves hanging out with his friends, playing video games and gliding through civilian life without really being noticed. He can be shy and horribly awkward, and experiences insecurity with the best of them, insecurities that his loved ones do their best to assuage. He’s in touch enough with his emotions to know that being a superhero doesn’t mean that he has to hold himself up to some impossible standard 24/7. He’s emotional and compassionate, a soft touch, as quick to shed tears over someone else as he is to try to save them. And when it really comes down to it? He’s okay with that.
POWER: Without his scarab, Jaime is little more than a very athletic kid. Having gone through training with other non-powered superheroes of his world (Peacemaker and Robin being the two prominent ones), he does have a grasp on the basics of fighting. When it comes to trouble, he’s better off relying on his own resourcefulness and quick thinking. The scarab, however, has quite a lot of abilities including the following:
Shapeshifting, which allows:
- Flight via both wing constructs and turbines
- Creating blades sturdy enough to puncture stone
- Creating a shield able to withstand large amounts of physical damage and exposure to very severe elements (i.e. the direct heat from a rocketship’s launch)
- Creation of various laser guns capable of everything ranging from a light shock
for ‘population control’ to blasts of ‘possible theological implications’ though Jaime stays somewhere in the middle due to his pacifist nature
- Creation of clothing, paper and photographs via Jaime’s organic waste
The Suit's Inherent Abilities:
-Ability to survive hazardous environmental conditions such as extreme heat, pressure and space.
-Superstrength/Endurance
-Reconfiguration of host body - ability to numb nerves, potential to grow extra fingers, etc.
-Accelerated healing of host body
-Creation of magnetic fields
-Minor Energy Manipulation - energy blasts, cocoons, constructs (mostly shields), inescapable bubbles and holograms
Technological Capabilities:
-Tracking anyone he comes in physical contact with and general threat assessments within five square miles
-Ability to communicate with technology
-Artificial Intelligence - The scarab is able to communicate to Jaime in his own head and is able to instruct Jaime on potential strategies and weaponry according to the files already in its database i.e., conjuring up kryptonite rays unbeknownst to its host against a Kryptonian opponent
-Scanning and identification of others’ broad physical statuses, including details such as pregnancy, the existence of thought patterns (for sentient tech) and energy signatures
-Ability to see magic as energy
-Communication Systems - ability to access most communication systems (basically a handy all purpose homing cell phone)
-Rudimentary translations of other languages
NOTE: Because the powers exist independently of Jaime's knowledge of them and may arise in game, I've listed everything shown in the later issues of Blue Beetle, his double issue with Booster Gold, Teen Titans and Generation Lost. Jaime himself doesn't know about the existence of some of these and will only discover them organically. Obviously this is a lot of power, so while I’m counting ‘Alien Tech’ as his superpower in game, let me know if you’d like me to scale his powers down!
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VIDEO) SAMPLE: [The feed flicks on to reveal Jaime, an entirely normal look teenager, sitting on the curb outdoors, watching the world go by. Why not? It’s a nice day out, and being outside of his supposed residence makes this all seem a bit less permanent.]
Hey, you know what’s weird? The cars here. I mean, yeah, flying cars are pretty cool and everything, but they really went all out with the designs. I was thinking that by the time people made flying cars, they’d go for something a little less… old school. Something like the Jetsons, maybe, [he says with a quiet laugh, mostly at himself for the absurdity of the comment.]
Something else that’s weird is being shuttled here and branded like a bunch of cows, but I’m thinking you guys get that a lot. At least they stuck with just tattooing our wrists. [There’s always a way to look on the bright side, even if that bright side is ‘they didn’t tattoo our butts’.]
Instead of asking the usual questions - [which he’s received answers to mainly by snooping around the network’s backlog] - I’ll guess I’ll just go ahead and introduce myself. So, uh, hi. I’m Jaime. [That greeting gets punctuated with an awkward little wave, and he’s not totally convincing when he adds on:] S’nice to meet you.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: Link!
FINAL NOTES: The Scarab in Jaime’s spine is an AI that consistently communicates with Jaime inside his head, and would be registered and heard by any technopaths or psychics in-game. It has a distinct personality and motivations of its own, but works in tandem with Jaime and does not have control over his body except in extreme circumstances. Even so, of you’d like me to elaborate more on it and its personality, just let me know.
NAME: Fey
AGE: 21
JOURNAL: [Bad username or unknown identity: ”thewordweaves”]
IM / EMAIL: AIM: Feyrae3
PLURK: Feygasm
RETURNING: New Player!
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Jaime Reyes. For those of you that are reading this, yes, that's J-A-I-M-E! It's actually pronounced Hye-mee or Hye-may depending on who you ask, and not like that Game of Thrones character. I know, Jaime Lannister's totally messed this up for everyone.
CHARACTER AGE: 16
SERIES: DC Comics (Blue Beetle)
CHRONOLOGY: After Blue Beetle 25
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: I’ll go for random selection!
BACKGROUND:
Jaime Reyes' life started out simply, just another normal childhood in a normal family in El Paso, for a given value of normal. In his world, superheroes and supervillains were simply a matter of course, and all the oddities that came with it were simply a fact of life. Nevertheless, such things were as distant to Jaime as politics, a far off thing that got a whole lot of airtime, but didn’t do too much to directly impact his life. Most people would have called Jaime's life better than most, considering he lived in quiet happiness surrounded by good friends and a family that loved him and that he loved in return. It wasn't perfect, but it was a whole lot closer than most people ever got.
Of course, his family and friends didn't change - he did. As he was walking to school one day, he came across the scarab - a piece of technology created by aliens called the Reach with a long-standing vendetta against the intergalactic peacekeeping force known as the Green Lanterns - and, thinking that it was little more than an amusing trinket, picked it up and brought it home with him. When he went to bed that night, the scarab fused itself to his spine and with it came a host of new powers, responsibilities, and above all else, new problems. His new condition first made itself known via nightmares and an acquaintanceship with the local gang of metahumans involving a misunderstanding due to the suit's initial tendency to go on the attack without consulting the human that happened to be wearing it. He did not, however, have a long time to process this before Booster Gold (superhero, model, and toothpaste mascot extraordinaire) appeared in his bedroom, blindfolded him and whisked him off to the Batcave in order to make use of the unique technology fused to his spine in order to locate a satellite involved in a convoluted nefarious plot. With that explained to him, it was only a matter of time before he was launched into space with the Justice League and off to apparently save the world. One crash course with Jaime as an incredibly reluctant student later, their mission was complete. Unfortunately, the scarab didn't appear to get the memo and, reacting in a defensive maneuver against the Green Lanterns on their side, slipped Jaime into the Bleed in space to escape from them. The Bleed is a space in between universes, suspended in space and time. Having rendered him invisible, Jaime could only watch as the rest of the Justice League returned to Earth and left him trapped in space, utterly alone.
After what felt like a few minutes in space but was actually a year on Earth, Jaime plummeted back onto Earth only to have the scarab's aversion to Green Lanterns reaffirmed in the way of an instinctive attack by one of the Green Lanterns that hadn't accompanied him to the satellite: Guy Gardner. Guy eventually ended his attack once it was revealed that Jaime was little more than an incredibly terrified sixteen-year old who was having the mother of all bad days, but sadly left Jaime to find his way back home alone. He did eventually find his way back home with the help of a kind stranger and crawled through the window with the hopes of avoiding worrying his mother... only to roll into his little sister, who had commandeered his room during his year-long absence. While this was the point at which many superheroes began the long path of concealing their identities, Jaime did what most kids who were close to their families would do and promptly told his family everything. Their initial reaction may have left something to be desired but they (and Jaime's best friends, who he also told as soon as he could) quickly adapted to the situation. A few obligatory visits to the doctor later, Jaime began trying to figure out what to do with his life - without the help of the folks who abandoned him up in space. His first step was to contact the Posse, the metahuman gang he had an involuntary skirmish with a year prior, who made him aware of La Dama, the local crime lord, and her tendency to dip into the metahuman population to whisk them away to what could be described as both a prison and a refugee camp.
As luck would have it, La Dama turned out to be the legal guardian and aunt of Brenda, one of Jaime's best friends, and both of their secret identities were revealed once Jaime crashed the camp. Some metahumans chose to stay in the camp as a safe refuge, others chose to leave with Jaime, but whatever the result, Jaime and La Dama were now aware of one another and settled on a tentative truce. With no more answers than before, an ex-superhero known by the name of Peacemaker made his presence known and helpfully clarified a few things to Jaime: the scarab in his spine was made of alien technology, and it was incredibly dangerous. A couple of history lessons and skirmishes and environmental disasters later, Jaime and Peacemaker found themselves face to face with the makers of Jaime's scarab themselves: the Reach. The Reach's representative, known only as the Negotiator, gave the false explanation that the scarab was merely meant to attach to a host to make itself known when a world's technology reached a certain point so that the Reach could swoop in and save the world from itself (false) and that Jaime's scarab was malfunctioning due to overexposure to magic (ostensibly true to a point). While the Reach successfully introduced themselves as friendly strangers to the world at large, they didn't manage to keep up the pretense of friendliness towards Jaime for long, implanting scarabs into the citizens of El Paso as an experiment and leaving Jaime to attempt to neutralize them without any casualties. Jaime managed the job by communicating directly with the other scarabs, but was ultimately left without any evidence of the Reach's ulterior motives to bring to the authorities.
Later on, with the help of Guy, (with whom he was able to establish a decent relationship with after their misunderstanding was cleared up vis a vis Jaime's mother's excellent grasp on making stupid men listen to her) Jaime discovered an illegal facility of the Reach in the South Pole along with proof that they were fraternizing with Earth's supervillains. Once again, the Reach's superior technology came in handy for the wrong guys, and all evidence was neatly covered up, but Jaime did get one thing out of it beyond his own personal proof: Blue Beetle II's diary as a present from Guy Gardner, a future source of endless inspiration for the boy carrying on the late hero's legacy.
To take a short detour from the main plot of the Reach’s imminent infiltration of Earth, Jaime’s next adventure had relevance not because of the importance of his actions (though having a hand in defeating Eclipso, an evil agent of God, in order to save a baby was an impressive sounding feat) but because it was the introduction of his magical sort-of-girlfriend, Traci 13. Essentially, Traci 13 arrived in Jaime’s garage to fetch him as an assist for defeating Eclipso, who had taken the baby of two members of the Posse in order to use its latent magical abilities for her own gains. Jaime charged in like all good heroes trying to impress incredibly attractive girls did and Eclipso, doubtlessly thinking herself very clever, turned Jaime into his ultimate power fantasy to vanquish his friends and allies.
As it turned out, Jaime was one superhero who really, really did not want to be a superhero, and his ultimate power fantasy was to become a dentist so that he could make enough money to pay off his parents’ mortgage and put his little sister through college. Needless to say, a good whallop on the head ended this innocuous version of Jaime, the baby was rescued, and Jaime was pretty thrilled to gain Traci’s affection.
More evidence for the Reach’s malicious nature kicked back into high gear the very next issue, in which Nathan Drake (a man for hire) created a hurricane along the Yucatan Coast, telling Jaime that he was operating on orders from Jaime’s own supposed bosses in order to spread water molecules across the land. There were only two things that Jaime knew about this encounter, but these were two very important things: the first was that the Reach had somehow tinkered with Earth’s water on a molecular basis via their alien tech and the second, more important fact for Jaime, was that in order to achieve their goals, people died.
The next step in the Reach’s infiltration was a truce with Sinestro - the leader of the yellow lanterns which can succinctly be described as evil green lanterns - after which they took control of Jaime’s mentor, Peacemaker, and equipped him with both a scarab and a yellow power ring. Faced with this dire combination, Jaime ended up hacking into the opponent scarab with the help of another green lantern in order to unleash Peacemaker’s mind from their hold and to allow him to save himself. With the yellow lanterns’ hold fading, Peacemaker took matters into his own hands, gouging the scarab out of his spine with the very weaponry the scarab bestowed upon him. Though he lived, this essentially extracted Peacemaker's expert advice away from Jaime for the remainder of his run.
Jaime’s last step in gathering enough information to come to a conclusion about the Reach’s grand plan was to discover the Reach’s Earth base of operations, hidden in the quintessential villainous hiding spot of a volcano. There, he put everything together: the Reach had put molecules of mind control technology too small to detect inside of Earth’s water in order to make humankind susceptible over a century of breathing, drinking, and eating these products. Once this made humankind susceptible enough, they were to bring in an external force which they themselves created - and which Jaime discovered - to tear apart the Earth... at which point the Reach would save them and humankind would be grateful enough to bow down to their reign. Acknowledging the cruelty of an artificially made creature with false memories of a life and people that he had once cherished, Jaime allowed the creature to find a merciful death in the volcano once the Reach’s probes came to destroy the evidence. With all the pieces put together, Jaime and the scarab announced their intentions to the Reach: they were coming.
Without enough evidence to go to the government or even to the rest of the superheroes (save for Batman, who was paranoid enough to trust in Jaime’s words), Jaime bid his farewells to his family and went to confront the Reach with an incredibly risky plan under his belt. Using the Reach’s own abilities to obscure their movements from sight and the tenuous nature between time and space bleed, Jaime essentially appeared in three places so quickly that it may have well been at the same time in order to triangulate the mothership’s location. Victory!
Or, rather, temporary victory as the Negotiator ripped Jaime’s scarab out of his back and tossed him into a jail cell without any clothes, as seems to be the usual in Jaime’s series. Luckily, he had some knowledge of the Reach’s tech prior to his arrival and knew the language needed to get out of his jail cell, into a pair of pants and then out, out and away to the mothership’s engine room. He bluffed that he intended to overload the engines and typed a random sequence of numbers into the engine’s computers to incite panic in the Reach - and to buy him some time as they agonized over interpreting it. Trapped once again on his knees, he said the magic words (also known as the scarab’s serial number: Khaji Da) and the scarab came zooming back to him. While Jaime was indisposed, he had managed to buy the scarab enough time to infiltrate the Reach’s files, send them to Batman’s satellites and to allow both Batman and Oracle to transmit the Reach’s invasion plans to every television set on Earth.
With all lost, the Negotiator reacted like a small child and insisted that if he couldn’t have the Earth, nobody could, and initiated a plan to destroy the Earth. Jaime followed and physically interrupted the circuitry (a fancy way of saying that he shoved his hands into a pile of live wires like the clever boy he is), perfectly willing to sacrifice his own life as the mothership exploded with him in it.
Happily, Jaime belonged to a superhero comic, which meant that Booster Gold nipped in there and yanked him back to Earth for the ensuing celebrations. With that done, Jaime returned to a fairly typical superhero life, beating up the occasional supervillain and dealing with the occasional fire, which was downright relaxing after dealing with the Reach.
This is where I’m taking him from in his own run, but just for posterity, I’ll note that he was simultaneously appearing in Teen Titans V3, for which I’m just going to link to wikipedia.
PERSONALITY:
The first thing that most people notice about Jaime is that he’s basically a good kid. The main reason why they notice this is that it’s essentially the truth; Jaime is the product of a strong upbringing and doesn’t have a delinquent bone in his body. He is, in whole, polite, honest, kind, moral and very earnest about the things that matter to him. The greatest power fantasy that he does have is to be successful enough with his studies to become a dentist with a high enough income to pay off his family’s mortgage and to pay for his younger sister’s college education. He may not be as unwavering in his belief in God as his father is, but his father’s lessons of mercy, forgiveness, responsibility and, occasionally, the need to kick ass have permanently stuck with him, and whether or not he’s actively aware of it, are lessons that he finds himself relying on time and time again. It may not always come to him naturally, but he’s careful to at least make an effort to remain conscientious of others - even after the shock of being gone for a year, he’s careful not to get too into himself and to instead consider how life had been like for those that he loved.
Despite having an alien killing machine to his spine, he’s so firm on his no-kill policy that with what may have very well been his dying breath, he offers the alien set on destroying the world his hand to save him. His sense of duty had been pronounced even before the events of his canon as seen by his insistent offers to help his father out at his garage, and this tendency has only grown along with his capabilities. He had never asked for the power that had been given to him, nor did he particularly want it, which is essentially why he has made a good hero out of himself. Without the latent thrill seeking and ego stroking tendencies that can be found in those leaping headfirst into danger, Jaime’s caution and level-headed nature along with his family and friends have allowed him to stay grounded in a flighty universe. He didn’t so much go into the superheroing profession as much as he had been very reluctantly pushed, which brings a certain clarity to the situation: he is who he is to help as much as he can, end of story. Once he comes to a decision, he knows he has to commit to it 100%. More importantly, he realizes that having his powers doesn’t change who he is as a person. No matter what happens to him, he will still have to ask his parents for permission before doing anything rash, he’s still expected to keep up his studies, and somewhere in there, he’s still plain old Jaime Reyes.
Being good, however, is not the same thing as being a pushover, and nice is not the same as stupid. Jaime may not do terribly well when placed underneath the public eye and underneath the scrutiny of those that he knows have authority over him - as seen in his inability to do much beyond stutter when cameras are turned on him - but he does have a mouth on him. He doesn’t take kindly to being taken advantage of and will actively work against those he feels hold all the cards when he has none. Even prior to gaining the scarab suit, he has no problems voicing his disrespect for the drunk in his father’s employ, nor does he hesitate to give a presumably dangerous gang lip if he feels it’s warranted. Though he’s not especially skilled at banter, he’s quick with a sarcastic quip and doesn’t bother holding back much of his irritation. His forthright nature has led him to expect the same from others despite all evidence to the contrary, which means that he’s not shy when it comes to demanding answers. It’s very difficult to make Jaime’s temper rise above mere annoyance, but when it does happen, he’s a force to be reckoned with. Circumstances coupled with his predecessor’s old journals have made Jaime resourceful when brute force simply isn’t the answer, and even if the outcome is unpleasant, he doesn’t hesitate to do what’s necessary. Unfortunately, this also comes with the fact that Jaime is often pretty impulsive, flinging himself into dangerous situations with the knowledge that his team and the scarab will have his back. He’s self-aware enough to know that he does some outrageous things in the name of his job, but goes ahead and does it anyway - in his mind, there really isn’t any alternative.
All in all, Jaime’s a pretty simple kid. He doesn’t let what his little sister refers to as his ‘job’ define his life - he’s a big dork when it comes down to it, and very little will change the fact that he still loves hanging out with his friends, playing video games and gliding through civilian life without really being noticed. He can be shy and horribly awkward, and experiences insecurity with the best of them, insecurities that his loved ones do their best to assuage. He’s in touch enough with his emotions to know that being a superhero doesn’t mean that he has to hold himself up to some impossible standard 24/7. He’s emotional and compassionate, a soft touch, as quick to shed tears over someone else as he is to try to save them. And when it really comes down to it? He’s okay with that.
POWER: Without his scarab, Jaime is little more than a very athletic kid. Having gone through training with other non-powered superheroes of his world (Peacemaker and Robin being the two prominent ones), he does have a grasp on the basics of fighting. When it comes to trouble, he’s better off relying on his own resourcefulness and quick thinking. The scarab, however, has quite a lot of abilities including the following:
Shapeshifting, which allows:
- Flight via both wing constructs and turbines
- Creating blades sturdy enough to puncture stone
- Creating a shield able to withstand large amounts of physical damage and exposure to very severe elements (i.e. the direct heat from a rocketship’s launch)
- Creation of various laser guns capable of everything ranging from a light shock
for ‘population control’ to blasts of ‘possible theological implications’ though Jaime stays somewhere in the middle due to his pacifist nature
- Creation of clothing, paper and photographs via Jaime’s organic waste
The Suit's Inherent Abilities:
-Ability to survive hazardous environmental conditions such as extreme heat, pressure and space.
-Superstrength/Endurance
-Reconfiguration of host body - ability to numb nerves, potential to grow extra fingers, etc.
-Accelerated healing of host body
-Creation of magnetic fields
-Minor Energy Manipulation - energy blasts, cocoons, constructs (mostly shields), inescapable bubbles and holograms
Technological Capabilities:
-Tracking anyone he comes in physical contact with and general threat assessments within five square miles
-Ability to communicate with technology
-Artificial Intelligence - The scarab is able to communicate to Jaime in his own head and is able to instruct Jaime on potential strategies and weaponry according to the files already in its database i.e., conjuring up kryptonite rays unbeknownst to its host against a Kryptonian opponent
-Scanning and identification of others’ broad physical statuses, including details such as pregnancy, the existence of thought patterns (for sentient tech) and energy signatures
-Ability to see magic as energy
-Communication Systems - ability to access most communication systems (basically a handy all purpose homing cell phone)
-Rudimentary translations of other languages
NOTE: Because the powers exist independently of Jaime's knowledge of them and may arise in game, I've listed everything shown in the later issues of Blue Beetle, his double issue with Booster Gold, Teen Titans and Generation Lost. Jaime himself doesn't know about the existence of some of these and will only discover them organically. Obviously this is a lot of power, so while I’m counting ‘Alien Tech’ as his superpower in game, let me know if you’d like me to scale his powers down!
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VIDEO) SAMPLE: [The feed flicks on to reveal Jaime, an entirely normal look teenager, sitting on the curb outdoors, watching the world go by. Why not? It’s a nice day out, and being outside of his supposed residence makes this all seem a bit less permanent.]
Hey, you know what’s weird? The cars here. I mean, yeah, flying cars are pretty cool and everything, but they really went all out with the designs. I was thinking that by the time people made flying cars, they’d go for something a little less… old school. Something like the Jetsons, maybe, [he says with a quiet laugh, mostly at himself for the absurdity of the comment.]
Something else that’s weird is being shuttled here and branded like a bunch of cows, but I’m thinking you guys get that a lot. At least they stuck with just tattooing our wrists. [There’s always a way to look on the bright side, even if that bright side is ‘they didn’t tattoo our butts’.]
Instead of asking the usual questions - [which he’s received answers to mainly by snooping around the network’s backlog] - I’ll guess I’ll just go ahead and introduce myself. So, uh, hi. I’m Jaime. [That greeting gets punctuated with an awkward little wave, and he’s not totally convincing when he adds on:] S’nice to meet you.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: Link!
FINAL NOTES: The Scarab in Jaime’s spine is an AI that consistently communicates with Jaime inside his head, and would be registered and heard by any technopaths or psychics in-game. It has a distinct personality and motivations of its own, but works in tandem with Jaime and does not have control over his body except in extreme circumstances. Even so, of you’d like me to elaborate more on it and its personality, just let me know.