Devilfish:Canvas

Canvas
Reputation	Notoriety Criminal C /
Author	/u/TheBluestHedgeroo (capes)
Pronouns	She/Her
Civilian name	Lynn Lowry
Alignment	Hero
Affiliation	Protectorate (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Changer (Mover, Trump)
Born	(1994-05-17) May 17, 1994
Status	NPC
Reddit Sheet

/u/TheBluestHedgeroo

Canvas has a pretty much unblemished record, having served in the notably high-risk San Diego Protectorate for two years without dying, becoming captured, or inadvertently killing someone. Props.

She hasn’t been too notable on her media appearances, mostly giving clipped replies to whatever queries she was asked. Her power gives her an incredibly …striking appearance, commonly appearing as a Seraph-esque individual, wings wreathed in or composed of a bizarre elemental effect with a comparatively small human being in the center.

Character Sheet

Appearance

A short and swole lady, standing at about 5’4’’ with dark brown hair cut pretty short. When in civvies, she tends to take an excessive amount of care in her appearance, usually wearing either “professional” outfits or dresses. Her costume consists of an armored white bodysuit, with six strips removed to provide an adequate point of egress for her Changer form’s wings. The wings themselves look completely blank when not copying a power, with three large pairs around her shoulders, midsection, and waist. The wings are a dull white at the start, and can change wildly in aesthetics depending on which power she is copying.

Equipment and Resources

• One (1) taser, carried on a belt holster when in-costume.
• One (1) hella large first-aid kit, carried in a backpack when in-costume.
• Five (5) pairs of handcuffs, two carried on a belt and the remainder in her pack when in-costume.
• Costume itself is fairly well-armored, serving to protect her actual body from low-tier gunfire and edged weapons while leaving her wings deceptively vulnerable.

Skills and Specializations

• Trained extensively in First Aid (knowing how to carry injured people without fucking them up more, at-a-glance diagnosis, how to actually apply medical supplies to a wounded person, etc)

• Roughly two years of experience in self-defense, not really having a distinct martial arts style but still being very aware of her weak points and having learned through experience how to protect them.

• Pretty decent writer, would have been a solid journalist in another life.

• Exceptional volleyball player, her team placing third in the annual SW PRT inter-departmental beach volleyball tournament for two consecutive years.

Mentality

Keeps up a pretty professional air when “on the job”, so to speak. Despite serving and gaining experience in a partial hellscape for two years, Lynn still lowkey loves almost everything about being a hero. The prestige, the excitement, the glory of protecting others, that sorta noise. Has a kinda nerdy fixation with powers as a whole, and might be inclined to needle her teammates for deets. Also has a kinda disturbing penchant for self-sacrificing behaviour, volunteering as S-n-R for the last two Endbringer fights despite her relative frailty and having about a dozen close calls during those fights.

Power

Upon activating her power, three massive pairs of wings sprout from her shoulders, midsection, and waist. Said “blank” wings are fairly durable (won’t tank a gunshot or anything while unenhanced, but it can absorb blunt impacts [e.g. crashing into someone, striking someone with a wing, shielding blows from a blunt weapon or fist] much better than an actual bird’s wing) and have a higher range of motion/flexibility than normal wings. When all three pairs of (blank) wings are free (read: mostly undamaged and unencumbered), her flight speed is a maximum of 35 mph with a high degree of maneuverability. Having only two pairs free drops the max speed to 30 mph and lessens her ability to maneuver, and having only one pair free drops the max speed to 20 mph and limits her to simple hovering, gliding, and diving.

Her Trump component manifests in her ability to copy the proverbial “element” of another person’s power. Valid grantors for a copied power element must be within line-of-sight range of her prior to granting her element, and Canvas herself must have either previously observed the power in use, been struck with the power’s effect, or touched the potential grantor to be able to copy the element of their power.

While an element is copied, her formerly “blank” wings rapidly change in aesthetic, material composition, and may gain a minor ability according to the element copied. For instance, copying a basic-bitch pyrokinetic will cause her wings to burst into a brilliant flame, some parts of the wings becoming made of fire itself as they emanate a dangerous level of heat. Copying a breaker who turns themselves into a rigid form of stone will cause her wings to become stony in turn, rapidly hardening as each feather becomes a small jagged edge. Additionally, said wings become highly resistant to the copied power (the wing of flame simply feeds off the flames of the other pyro, the wing of stone stands firm against what would normally be a devastating strike from the Breaker made of stone), and may even surge in power after sustaining a few strikes, far outclassing the power of the original cape’s element.

Blurb on Elements

So, elements can be sorta chopped down to one simple one-word aspect of the power (or sometimes multiple one-word aspects of it, if the power has two or more distinct elements), mixed with a lil bit of what makes that cape’s power special. For instance, Fafnir, Quicksilver, and Shredshot all have the base element of Metal. (Quicksilver changes into metal, Shredshot fires blasts of metal that also turn power effects to metal splinters, and Fafnir creates metal around his body) However, that power would not manifest the same three pairs of metal wings per donor. Quicksilver’s power would prompt Canvas’ wings to change into a thinner, lightweight, and more mutable metal (to reflect her Changer state’s general composition, as well as her more “liquid metal”-y vibe). Shredshot’s power would prompt her wings to change into a slightly thicker, slightly heavier, and more “offensive” metal composition, her feathers appearing as jagged and splintered edges. (to reflect Shredshot’s more generally offensive Blaster power, as well as being evocative of the jagged splinters of metal her power turns effects into). Fafnir’s power would prompt her wings to become quite thick, heavy enough to almost prohibit flight, and develop a heavy clockwork-metal aesthetic (to reflect Fafnir’s whole clockwork vibe, as well as the qualities evident in Fafnir’s created shell)

While every cape has an element, not every element is readily obvious. While it’s easy to determine in some-to-most Blasters, Changers, Breakers, C53’s, Strikers, Shakers, and Movers it may become hella difficult to determine in other classes.

• For Tinkers: Roughly speaking, if the specialty is evocative of a particular natural element (i.e. Ice for Perma, flame for Nitro, light for Blur, swole necrotic flesh for Huntress), she would get icy, fiery, bright, and swole undead wings, respectively. For Midas tinkers (i.e. Blackguard, Geode), she would get qualities of the material they work with/generate as an element (Shead or however tf it’s spelled, crystal). For tinkers with specialties that aren’t quite evocative of a natural element (i.e. Medjed (movement), Persephone (man-machine melding), Mockingbird (copying shards themselves after 2nd trigger? Not quite sure?), her wings will become evocative of the tech they produce. (i.e. lithe, lightweight and metallic, a tad bit more fragile, and might incorporate shit like reaching hands, rocket boosters, or grappling hooks for Medjed, a heftier patchwork of organic wing and metal shell, tad bit tougher, and might incorporate rocket boosters or a small nimbus of electricity around the edges for Perse, and a fucking bizarre Shardish-flesh compisition with a hefty thickness, powerful muscles, and possibly something else for Mockingbird)

• For multitriggers or persons with multiple elements: Canvas must choose one element/power to borrow from. (i.e. Outburst is built around the elements of sound (Outburst), time (Harlot), torpor (Malaise), and smoke/darkness (Shriek). Copying from Outburst would invite her to choose from the Outburst version of those four elements (Wings made of blueish rock and that generate a horrid din with their flaps for Sound, wings made of a partially incorporeal amber-colored substance that trap struck targets in slowed time for Time, wings made from a sharper and thinner blueish rock, coated in a toxic substance that leeches stamina and mental willpower from struck targets for Torpor, and wings wreathed in a thick chalky white smoke that passively spread said smoke for Smoke/Darkness.))

For other occasions where the element is not readily apparent (e.g. some Thinkers), it can be worked out case-by-case.

Some Power Stipulations

• Canvas gains some Manton protections against the current element she is copying (won’t accidentally immolate herself with flame wings, nor crush herself with stone wings)

• Copied elements only remain for five minutes after granted, after which LoS with the granter must be attained again. “Surges” in power only remain active for twenty seconds.

• Canvas cannot copy powers from capes who are currently deceased or unconscious.

• The present element/composition of the wings dictate the durability, maneuverability, corporeality, and flight speed the wings have. The general pattern is when the wing becomes composed of a denser or heavier material, the flight speed and maneuverability lessen and vice versa. Cannot gain more than 45mph max speed, but can develop wings so heavy and massive that flight becomes impossible under her own power.

• For powers with two or more elemental components, Canvas can only copy one (e.g. can only gain either Flame or Frenzy from Flamewar, and her wings will only defend from either Flame or Frenzy’s component in her firebolts)

• While Canvas can start the element-changing process at will, the full material transition from either blank to copied or copied to copied takes roughly five seconds to occur.

• Canvas can only remain in her Changer state for roughly three consecutive hours. Damage to her wings heals after anywhere from one hour (smol lacerations, light bruising) to twenty-four hours (a wing being either fully severed from her body or completely pulverized) spent outside of her Changer state. Damage to her body itself is unaffected.

Backstory

Lynn was a complete sucker for cape stuff growing up, which is as much a testament to the success of San Diego’s Image department as it is to the inherent coolness of superpowers. She tried many avenues to get more embroiled into the cape life starting in middle school, from a brief consideration of becoming a cape groupie (which was shot down after she googled what a Groupie was) to a brief interview with a pair of Wards in her Journalism class (which didn’t go too poorly, all things considered), to a string of unsuccessful attempts to become a sidekick to local independent heroes (all of which failed to a shameful extent).

Finally, a questionable success occurred after she met Mistral in highschool, who was an aging Tinker who specialized in generation of wind and frost. Most importantly, she was in need of someone to “field-test” her equipment, not wishing to risk osteoporosis-related complications in costume. So began her brief tenure as Berg, and her feeling of being on top of the fucking world. Heroes respected her in-costume and villains were awed by this smol in a jetpack and freeze-ray clowning on them, while the other plebs unknowingly sung her praises at the cafeteria table. That tenure unfortunately ended when she experienced an equipment malfunction while racing towards a big duel, her flight-pack cutting out while she was so high up that the other combatants appeared as glowing specks on the horizon. She frantically tried to apply the advice of Mistral’s furious screaming in her ear, being hollered at to do things that an actual fucking hero would know how to do. She triggered while falling that last mile, while Mistral’s frantic advice transferred into furious cursing about her incompetence and how much she was fucking Mistral over.

A fast-track into the San Diego Protectorate followed, wherein Lynn took the name of Canvas, had some of the best and worst times of her life, watched no less than three people die in her arms, and experienced a more genuine shade of the familiar glory she felt as Berg. She volunteered for a transfer into Ashton’s alleged eternal nightmare of a city, San Diego having experienced a relative amount of calm after a combination of the recent Endbringer attack overseas and a frighteningly bold raid decimated the villain population. The fact that Ashton was currently suffering a sustained attack by a notorious bioterrorist did very little to discourage her transfer attempt….