Elemental Telekinetic Abilities

Don't worry, looking at the title kind of confuses me tool. Lol. But, it's something you'll pick up on really quickly.

Why?

Because this subject has been covered in a wide array of media, including Disney's most recent animated endeavor. Frozen is the story of the Ice Queen Elsa (her sister Anna and some boys are mentioned too, I think) as she grows from frightened child into a frightened adult who eventually embraces her abilities and sings a lovely song about it. And, now you'll be singing that song all day, courtesy of Indina Menzel and Disney.

Anyway, Elsa is a cryokinetic. This basically means that she's a psychic whose powers manifest as bursts of extremely cold energy which freezes the water vapor in the air (this also makes it a subschool of hydrokinesis, the ability to manipulate water). It's a spontaneous ability that is tied, like all other things, to the emotions of it's wielder, and if their emotions are chaotic and uncontrollable, such as Elsa who spent most of her life as a recluse and terrified of herself, then their powers are going to be chaotic and uncontrollable.

Example: Elsa in public for the first time in fifteen years and her little sister tells her she got engaged after knowing a guy for less than fifteen minutes. Elsa, understandably enough, flew off the handle and her powers went wild. That caused the crowd around her to freak out and cry witchcraft and sorcery, and Elsa got afraid. That drove her powers further and further out of her control. Then she ran away and caused an eternal winter, or something like that.

And, another popular example of a cryokinetic: Frozone from The Incredibles. And, Ice Man from the X-men.

But, cryokinesis isn't the only elemental psychokinetic power possible.

You have pyrokinetics like the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four and Charlie McGee from the Stephen King novel Firestarter. (It's also Mr. King we have to thank for the word pyrokinetic, and any derivatives thereof. Such as words that replace the prefix pyro or tele with another prefix implying some other element.)

You have terrakinetics like Terra from the Teen Titans series.

And Hydrokinetics such as Aquaman, Mermaidman, and Percy Jackson (along with the aforementioned cryokinetics).

Aerokinesis= Storm from X-men. (The technical definition of her power is Weather Manipulation, this, however is a subschool of Air Manipulation as all weather phenomena (with the exception of earthquakes and volcanoes) involve the air in one state of being or another.)

Then you have Benders. This, so far as I can tell, is an Asian term (not sure which culture; my apologies for lack of accuracy) for an individual who can control the elements in one way or another.

There is one thing I would like to note, however. However much it may look like sorcery or magic, it's not. Elemental kinesis is a psychokinetic ability controlled strictly by the mind and instinct. Think of the media you've seen. Can the Human Torch turn himself invisible and teleport from one sid eof the earth to the other. No, he can't, lol. Because his powers are of the mind, not the arcane. It is, however, possible that Johnny Storm could learn how to use the arcane. If he can keep his you-know-what in his pants long enough to study.

Anywho, I'm out.

And, later, I might try to explain how all of this fits into Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons. That is, after I do some research and figure it out for myself. Lol.

Ryan

5-22-14

Cupcakes

I got another topic from Mel for today. I like it that way, personally. I find it rather entertaining. Not that I’m not coming up with my own topics, but rather not being able to prepare anything for the topic before I name it. Cupcake gives me the subject, and I get to writing. In a way it’s easier to write like that.

And, for today’s topic Mel might as well have asked me who my favorite superhero is.

There’s only one idea, one image that pops into my head when I hear the word cupcake. It’s not a picture of a little pastry with too much icing on top. No, it’s a picture of my beautiful wife.

I forget when I started calling her Cupcake and I forget why, but it’s stuck with me forever after. She’ll always be my Cupcake. As for answering the “who’s my favorite superhero” question, she’s the answer to that. Cupcake is my favorite superhero. No comic book character ever has held a candle to her might.

She’s my shoulder to cry on.

My flashlight in the dark.

She’s the strength that keeps me standing.

I can honestly say that I’m still drawing breath today because of her.

Something broke inside me, and she’s helping put the pieces back together, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay her for that. I can’t even begin to articulate what she means to me. It’s too much for words, for drawing, too much for any form of art to describe. The closest I could to it is her being my favorite superhero.

If I could (drawing is on my list of things to learn how to do) I would draw a picture of her. In it she’d be standing up on a building ledge, in a purple one piece… Okay, more along the lines of what Black Widow was wearing in The Avengers, but she’d have a little symbol over her heart. In it would be a cupcake, with purple frosting instead of pink, she doesn’t like the color pink, and it would have a little cherry on top of it. It would be a yellow background, a kind of pastel yellow, not the same kind of yellow Robin uses in his symbol. On the back of her jacket the symbol would be repeated, only a lot larger. And, it would have writing around it:

Cupcake came to town to kick your ass.

And, she wouldn’t be wearing a mask. Why? Because she doesn’t need one, and masks don’t fit her personality at all, with her everything is right out in the open. And, she’s a Hatfield; she doesn’t get mad… just even.

She’d also be a walking armory, what with all the knives and daggers and throwing starts, but there would be no guns. Just like her attitude towards pink, my Cupcake doesn’t like guns.

Crossbows are a completely different story, however.

A little target practice with one, and she’d give Darrell of The Walking Dead a run for his money, at least according to her dice rolls.

Anyway, yes, I need to learn how to draw and I need to learn how to code. Both of them take time and practice, and I’m impatient… Damnit.

Bah.

I’ll talk to you kids later.

Ryan

1-30-14

PS: Cupcake, I love you!!!

Steel

I’ve had a real strange desire today, ever since I got finished with The Goal That Shall Not Be Named. I’ve wanted to watch the movie Steel, and I can’t figure out why. It’s a terrible movie, an absolutely terrible movie that should have never left the first draft of the screenplay, but it did, and I’m now completely allowed to make fun of it.

Steel is a superhero move (the worst one in my opinion, though Spider-Man 3 comes pretty close) based on the character John Henry Irons from the DC comics of the same name, well, I think the comic was called Man of Steel, I don’t know. Irons became a hero in much the same way Tony Stark did. His technology was turned around and used against him, and continently enough this is right around the time Superman was killed by the monster Doomsday. Irons felt it was his responsibility as a genius inventor to step in and take Supes place. He made himself a suit of armor (similar to Iron Man’s) put Superman’s S-shield on it, grabbed a cape and went skyward with his mission.

I became a fan of John Henry Irons, not after watching Steel in the late nineties, but while I was in high school and when I first encountered the novelized form of The Death of Superman, the book’s title, if anybody’s curious, is The Death and Life of Superman (look it up, it’s a good read), and in the latter half of that book (during the Reign of the Supermen arc) is where I was exposed to Irons.

And, that’s where my brain stopped. I was trying to think about the good qualities of John Henry Irons, the qualities that make him a relatable character, but then I get stuck on Shaq who played Irons like he was a teddy bear and all around boy scout. You know, a character that would be very similar to Clark/Superman and yeah, that works for Supes, that’s his character and it always has been (if you ignore Man of Steel, and I try too). But, that doesn’t mean it works for every superhero. I mean look at Spiderman, his life is shit 99% of the time and that makes him a relatable character. Bruce Wayne is relatable, not because we’re all billionaires who run around at night in tight black spandex, but because he’s a tragic figure. His parents were murdered in front of him when he was a child, and we can relate to that because it makes us ask the question what would happen if my parents died; what would I do. And, if you answer is to dress up in black spandex and run around at night then you probably need to see a therapist.

But, there’s nothing to relate to John Henry Irons, no so far as I can remember. He’s a boy scout who sees somebody using his mistake and immediately jumps to the I need to be a superhero thing to stop this. There doesn’t seem to be any catalyst to it. Nothing to give him that tragic relatable edge. I dunno.

I do think they should make another Steel movie, with today’s CGI it would be epic, and if they got the right writer (kind of pointing at myself here) then the movie would be just as successful as its Marvel counterpart, Iron Man. Of course… there might also be some legal trouble there. Not sure.

Anywho, I’m off into the wild blue yonder.

Ryan