revised cape&cowl app
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Jillian
AGE: 25
JOURNAL: dayofjudah
IM: inarkhamego
E-MAIL: exprophet (at) gmail
RETURNING: Jason Todd, Harry Osborn, Jonathan Crane
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Hartley Rathaway, AKA Piper
FANDOM: DC Comics
CHRONOLOGY: After Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: Piper
ALTER EGO: still Hartley
BACKGROUND:
Born deaf to wealthy parents, Piper's hearing was eventually fixed by Doctor Magnus at a young age. Doctor Magnus not only fixed his hearing, but actually made it better than normal. Hearing things for the first time, he immediately became obsessed with music in all forms. When he came out, his parents were less than supportive, and he left home. He had long studied sonic technology and eventually at age sixteen invented a technique of hypnosis through music. He turned to crime out of boredom and feeling of control over others, clashing with Barry Allen. However, after Barry's death, Piper quit crime and reformed, becoming something of a left wing supporter of the poor, and one of Wally's best friends, often aiding him with his technological prowess and sonic abilities. He was usually there for Linda, Wally's wife, during stressful times, and considered them family, especially since (shortly after they reconciled) his own family had been murdered by Mirror Master. Mirror Master also framed Piper for the deed. Though Wally was convinced of his innocence, Piper was not, and he allowed himself to be imprisoned. After later breaking out of Iron Heights, he struck a deal with then FBI agent James Jesse, the reformed Trickster, joining his team of ex-rogues to hunt down the others.
Here things get needlessly complicated, because it turns out that Barry Allen had once gotten Zatanna to mindzap one of his rogues, the Top, to make him a good guy. In turn, the Top began brainwashing other rogues to make them reform. This is supposedly responsible for any and all of the rogues who did that. However, guilt over his previous actions drove the Top insane. Barry wrote Wally a letter, asking him to, if the Top ever returned, undo what he'd done to the Top's mind. So Wally had Zatanna undo the mindzapping, and surprise! The Top went batshit and started "undoing" all the stuff he'd done to the other rogues, effectively returning them to bad guys. ALSO, because Linda had miscarried the twins, Wally had the Spectre make everyone forget he was the Flash (including himself... BRILLIANT). So when it was Piper's turn to go raurgh, Wally removed his cowl; seeing Wally's face made Piper remember they were friends, and also pass out. That is the last time we see him until Countdown.
AND THEN, Wally, Linda, and the miraculously-not-miscarried twins disappeared into the speed force. This is important because it left Piper with no family... except, eh, MAYBE-not-really Bart, who had assumed the Flash mantle. Piper decided he should keep an eye on Bart, and to that end, pretended to rejoin the rogues. This worked not so great, but after a show of faith (he stole money from some rich fat guy using his hypnotic flute powers), they let him hang around. This ended badly: Inertia betrayed the rogues, and Piper tried to get them to beat Inertia up. However, they killed Bart in a panic instead. And then the shit really hit the fan.
While attending Bart's funeral, Piper and Trickster were nabbed by the Suicide Squad, who handcuffed them together with absurdly advanced technology every time the chain pulled tight, it electrocuted both of them, and any attempt to get out would cause the cuffs to explode. But Trickster had an explosive tooth that he spat out, causing enough of a distraction for them to jump out the back.......... of the plane they were in, falling a great distance above Gotham's harbor. They managed to survive it, just like they managed to get away from THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE DC UNIVERSE chasing after them for several weeks of Countdown. Eventually, Deadshot killed Trickster, triggering a twenty four hour timer until the cuffs explosively self-destructed. Piper was forced to drag Trickster's body around the desert and hallucinated Trickster talking to him. THEN, he was boomtubed to Apokolips by Desaad, who revealed he was the one behind everything bizarre and stupid that happened to Piper and Trickster. He also said that Piper could channel the Anti-Life Equation. Piper promptly killed Desaad by using the flute to explode his head, then did to same to destroy Brother Eye/Apokalips. With Queen. "The Show Must Go On", specifically. Somehow it's not explained in the comics he not only survived the ensuing explosion, he found himself back on earth, in Gotham.
Once back in Keystone, he stole Trickster's will, which was really information on the other Rogues. When Zoom and Inertia (as Kid Zoom) confronted the Rogues, he froze them in place with his flute and kicked Mirror Master in the face as ~*REVENGE*~. But then he was stabbed in the shoulder by Libra. Despite the wound, he later paralyzed Inertia so the Rogues could kill him. Piper is later mentioned to have turned himself in to the Central City Police Department. It is not known what Bart's return means for his incarceration, nor has his reaction to Bart's resurrection been shown.
PERSONALITY:
For a former Flash rogue, Piper is incredibly normal. During his time as Wally's friend, he is a dependable, go-to guy for information and technology; supportive, reasonable, and sympathetic, he's played as a distinct foil to the hot-headed Wally. He loves music of all kinds, "everything from Miles Davis to the Sex Pistols", but is not actually very good as a player he is technically accomplished but not especially impressive. Piper is good at keeping a level head, though unrelentingly stressful situations (such as being captured/chased through Gotham by, at various points, the Suicide Squad, Batwoman, the Question, Poison Ivy, Deathstroke, and Batman) will eventually wear him down. Still, even while these events were happening and Trickster was being difficult and (comically...? "comically"?) homophobic, Piper dealt with him maturely and never lost his temper. (... Besides twice saying he would kill Trickster himself when this was all over.) So while greatly resilient, hallucinating the voice of your dead companion does not speak of perfect mental health. In his defense, it could have been Desaad actively trying to drive him nuts.
He has a strong sense of responsibility, stating that when Wally was gone he felt he should look after Bart. His decision to do that by "infiltrating" the Rogues was perhaps not the best one he could have made, but he didn't know Bart very well and probably felt uncomfortable approaching him. Wally and Linda were Piper's best friends, and when they disappeared he was pretty much lost; he'd had a steady boyfriend previously, but the relationship didn't survive the mess where he was framed for his parents' murder and ended up working for the FBI under Trickster's direction. He had no more connections to a normal life no friends, no family, no reputation so he turned back to the only other life he knew.
Piper is a good guy, but he's not a hero, and doesn't see himself as one. He's happy to be part of a support crew, and simply be a very useful person to have on one's side.
The counterargument to all that are the facts that yes, he did enjoy controlling people during the criminal part of his life; yes, he exploded a man's head; and yes, he did help kill Inertia. The latter two acts were motivated by revenge, both for Trickster and for making his life hell. Now that those are finished, he feels both shame and guilt, but also a stubborn sense that at least one of the acts (Desaad's death) was fully justified, even if it was murder. He isn't afraid of who he's become, but he does regret that it all ever happened, and regrets Trickster's death most of all.
POWER:
Piper has the ability to hypnotize and manipulate others with music, which works on animals (especially rats) and technology as well. He is capable of using sonic technology to blow stuff up (first, obviously, he must construct it). He also has enhanced hearing.
Examples of use of abilities:
- he uses the dial tones of a phone to subdue a mummy and put it to sleep
- he uses a blade of grass to whistle loudly, which breaks a collar off of Wally
- he plays his flute to:
-- mess with the highly advanced tech cuffs so the timer doesn't run out
-- become 'invisible' by convincing people he and Trickster aren't there
-- make a man give him all his money, then jump off a boat and swim two miles to shore even though he was old and overweight
-- explode a guy's head
-- summon a burro (fuck yeah)
The Anti-Life Equation is a mathematical proof of the futility of living, giving the power to dominate the will of all sentient and sapient races. Piper apparently, somehow (it is never explained) uses it to make people do things with his music. He can only use it through music. It affects technology as well. The cuffs were advanced Apokaliptan technology and he could control them to a limited extent, so it is safe to say he has a handle on normal earth technology. This means he could potentially exert control over many kinds of technology, such as the communicators, though not to the extent of control that a technopath could. He can only use simple commands and has to use music to convey those commands; a technopath could do more advanced things.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
http://community.livejournal.com/capeandcowl/tag/%E2%80%A0%20hartley%20rathaway%20%7C%20piper
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
The amount of people whose deaths Piper had failed to prevent really struck him sometimes. You could forget yes! day to day, now and then, that you were responsible for your parents' deaths, or that you'd failed to prevent a bunch of panicked Rogues from killing your best friend's little cousin. Trickster was a lot harder to put aside, being more recent, but at least he wasn't hearing the other man's voice anymore.
That was it, though. 'Just' four. His family, the Flash, and a friend.
How many times did you have to fuck up before it was official? Before you could start putting it on your resumé? Before you could incorporate it into your introductions? Hi, I'm Hartley, nice to meet you, did you know I'm a major fuck up?
And music was no solace. Somewhere out there in space, he'd ended an entire world with a few notes from his flute. A pretty shitty world, as far as he could tell, but he'd been planning on going out with it and here he was. Everything was slippery lost. Nowhere. All ties severed, all evidence of life deleted (maybe James still spared a thought for him from time to time), music was all he had left, and he was almost sick of it. He had never been much of a performer, for all his technical skill. Only once he'd learned to make people do what he wanted did he ever have an appreciative audience... but now, he didn't want to tell anyone to do anything.
NAME: Jillian
AGE: 25
JOURNAL: dayofjudah
IM: inarkhamego
E-MAIL: exprophet (at) gmail
RETURNING: Jason Todd, Harry Osborn, Jonathan Crane
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Hartley Rathaway, AKA Piper
FANDOM: DC Comics
CHRONOLOGY: After Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: Piper
ALTER EGO: still Hartley
BACKGROUND:
Born deaf to wealthy parents, Piper's hearing was eventually fixed by Doctor Magnus at a young age. Doctor Magnus not only fixed his hearing, but actually made it better than normal. Hearing things for the first time, he immediately became obsessed with music in all forms. When he came out, his parents were less than supportive, and he left home. He had long studied sonic technology and eventually at age sixteen invented a technique of hypnosis through music. He turned to crime out of boredom and feeling of control over others, clashing with Barry Allen. However, after Barry's death, Piper quit crime and reformed, becoming something of a left wing supporter of the poor, and one of Wally's best friends, often aiding him with his technological prowess and sonic abilities. He was usually there for Linda, Wally's wife, during stressful times, and considered them family, especially since (shortly after they reconciled) his own family had been murdered by Mirror Master. Mirror Master also framed Piper for the deed. Though Wally was convinced of his innocence, Piper was not, and he allowed himself to be imprisoned. After later breaking out of Iron Heights, he struck a deal with then FBI agent James Jesse, the reformed Trickster, joining his team of ex-rogues to hunt down the others.
Here things get needlessly complicated, because it turns out that Barry Allen had once gotten Zatanna to mindzap one of his rogues, the Top, to make him a good guy. In turn, the Top began brainwashing other rogues to make them reform. This is supposedly responsible for any and all of the rogues who did that. However, guilt over his previous actions drove the Top insane. Barry wrote Wally a letter, asking him to, if the Top ever returned, undo what he'd done to the Top's mind. So Wally had Zatanna undo the mindzapping, and surprise! The Top went batshit and started "undoing" all the stuff he'd done to the other rogues, effectively returning them to bad guys. ALSO, because Linda had miscarried the twins, Wally had the Spectre make everyone forget he was the Flash (including himself... BRILLIANT). So when it was Piper's turn to go raurgh, Wally removed his cowl; seeing Wally's face made Piper remember they were friends, and also pass out. That is the last time we see him until Countdown.
AND THEN, Wally, Linda, and the miraculously-not-miscarried twins disappeared into the speed force. This is important because it left Piper with no family... except, eh, MAYBE-not-really Bart, who had assumed the Flash mantle. Piper decided he should keep an eye on Bart, and to that end, pretended to rejoin the rogues. This worked not so great, but after a show of faith (he stole money from some rich fat guy using his hypnotic flute powers), they let him hang around. This ended badly: Inertia betrayed the rogues, and Piper tried to get them to beat Inertia up. However, they killed Bart in a panic instead. And then the shit really hit the fan.
While attending Bart's funeral, Piper and Trickster were nabbed by the Suicide Squad, who handcuffed them together with absurdly advanced technology every time the chain pulled tight, it electrocuted both of them, and any attempt to get out would cause the cuffs to explode. But Trickster had an explosive tooth that he spat out, causing enough of a distraction for them to jump out the back.......... of the plane they were in, falling a great distance above Gotham's harbor. They managed to survive it, just like they managed to get away from THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE DC UNIVERSE chasing after them for several weeks of Countdown. Eventually, Deadshot killed Trickster, triggering a twenty four hour timer until the cuffs explosively self-destructed. Piper was forced to drag Trickster's body around the desert and hallucinated Trickster talking to him. THEN, he was boomtubed to Apokolips by Desaad, who revealed he was the one behind everything bizarre and stupid that happened to Piper and Trickster. He also said that Piper could channel the Anti-Life Equation. Piper promptly killed Desaad by using the flute to explode his head, then did to same to destroy Brother Eye/Apokalips. With Queen. "The Show Must Go On", specifically. Somehow it's not explained in the comics he not only survived the ensuing explosion, he found himself back on earth, in Gotham.
Once back in Keystone, he stole Trickster's will, which was really information on the other Rogues. When Zoom and Inertia (as Kid Zoom) confronted the Rogues, he froze them in place with his flute and kicked Mirror Master in the face as ~*REVENGE*~. But then he was stabbed in the shoulder by Libra. Despite the wound, he later paralyzed Inertia so the Rogues could kill him. Piper is later mentioned to have turned himself in to the Central City Police Department. It is not known what Bart's return means for his incarceration, nor has his reaction to Bart's resurrection been shown.
PERSONALITY:
For a former Flash rogue, Piper is incredibly normal. During his time as Wally's friend, he is a dependable, go-to guy for information and technology; supportive, reasonable, and sympathetic, he's played as a distinct foil to the hot-headed Wally. He loves music of all kinds, "everything from Miles Davis to the Sex Pistols", but is not actually very good as a player he is technically accomplished but not especially impressive. Piper is good at keeping a level head, though unrelentingly stressful situations (such as being captured/chased through Gotham by, at various points, the Suicide Squad, Batwoman, the Question, Poison Ivy, Deathstroke, and Batman) will eventually wear him down. Still, even while these events were happening and Trickster was being difficult and (comically...? "comically"?) homophobic, Piper dealt with him maturely and never lost his temper. (... Besides twice saying he would kill Trickster himself when this was all over.) So while greatly resilient, hallucinating the voice of your dead companion does not speak of perfect mental health. In his defense, it could have been Desaad actively trying to drive him nuts.
He has a strong sense of responsibility, stating that when Wally was gone he felt he should look after Bart. His decision to do that by "infiltrating" the Rogues was perhaps not the best one he could have made, but he didn't know Bart very well and probably felt uncomfortable approaching him. Wally and Linda were Piper's best friends, and when they disappeared he was pretty much lost; he'd had a steady boyfriend previously, but the relationship didn't survive the mess where he was framed for his parents' murder and ended up working for the FBI under Trickster's direction. He had no more connections to a normal life no friends, no family, no reputation so he turned back to the only other life he knew.
Piper is a good guy, but he's not a hero, and doesn't see himself as one. He's happy to be part of a support crew, and simply be a very useful person to have on one's side.
The counterargument to all that are the facts that yes, he did enjoy controlling people during the criminal part of his life; yes, he exploded a man's head; and yes, he did help kill Inertia. The latter two acts were motivated by revenge, both for Trickster and for making his life hell. Now that those are finished, he feels both shame and guilt, but also a stubborn sense that at least one of the acts (Desaad's death) was fully justified, even if it was murder. He isn't afraid of who he's become, but he does regret that it all ever happened, and regrets Trickster's death most of all.
POWER:
Piper has the ability to hypnotize and manipulate others with music, which works on animals (especially rats) and technology as well. He is capable of using sonic technology to blow stuff up (first, obviously, he must construct it). He also has enhanced hearing.
Examples of use of abilities:
- he uses the dial tones of a phone to subdue a mummy and put it to sleep
- he uses a blade of grass to whistle loudly, which breaks a collar off of Wally
- he plays his flute to:
-- mess with the highly advanced tech cuffs so the timer doesn't run out
-- become 'invisible' by convincing people he and Trickster aren't there
-- make a man give him all his money, then jump off a boat and swim two miles to shore even though he was old and overweight
-- explode a guy's head
-- summon a burro (fuck yeah)
The Anti-Life Equation is a mathematical proof of the futility of living, giving the power to dominate the will of all sentient and sapient races. Piper apparently, somehow (it is never explained) uses it to make people do things with his music. He can only use it through music. It affects technology as well. The cuffs were advanced Apokaliptan technology and he could control them to a limited extent, so it is safe to say he has a handle on normal earth technology. This means he could potentially exert control over many kinds of technology, such as the communicators, though not to the extent of control that a technopath could. He can only use simple commands and has to use music to convey those commands; a technopath could do more advanced things.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
http://community.livejournal.com/capeandcowl/tag/%E2%80%A0%20hartley%20rathaway%20%7C%20piper
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
The amount of people whose deaths Piper had failed to prevent really struck him sometimes. You could forget yes! day to day, now and then, that you were responsible for your parents' deaths, or that you'd failed to prevent a bunch of panicked Rogues from killing your best friend's little cousin. Trickster was a lot harder to put aside, being more recent, but at least he wasn't hearing the other man's voice anymore.
That was it, though. 'Just' four. His family, the Flash, and a friend.
How many times did you have to fuck up before it was official? Before you could start putting it on your resumé? Before you could incorporate it into your introductions? Hi, I'm Hartley, nice to meet you, did you know I'm a major fuck up?
And music was no solace. Somewhere out there in space, he'd ended an entire world with a few notes from his flute. A pretty shitty world, as far as he could tell, but he'd been planning on going out with it and here he was. Everything was slippery lost. Nowhere. All ties severed, all evidence of life deleted (maybe James still spared a thought for him from time to time), music was all he had left, and he was almost sick of it. He had never been much of a performer, for all his technical skill. Only once he'd learned to make people do what he wanted did he ever have an appreciative audience... but now, he didn't want to tell anyone to do anything.