I have real, paying, writing work to do but woke up this morning with a time travel story not of the do-over variety. I really expected Reflector would "get it out of my system" and I wouldn't be posting anything else on SOL for at least another 6 months. That's the funny thing about creativity though. It's not like a cup of water that's gone when you pour it out; it's like a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it.
So for the record, I'll probably work on this untitled time travel story in my spare time over the next couple months before returning to the world of Reflector. I do have an idea for another story in that universe. It doesn't directly pick up with Jake and the ladies. Rather, it follows another super-powered character mentioned in the story.
One of the fun thing about writing superhero stories is creating all sorts of heroes and villains.
Veronica/Hellcat was the most difficult for me to write because she has such a split personality. Here's some background never hinted at in the story. Veronica was adopted as an infant straight from an African orphanage when Mrs. DeVries was on a mission trip. Veronica is the last survivor of her village and heir to a supernatural trait called the mantle of the cheetah. She was raised in wealth but suffered a lot of bullying from the other rich kids because she was different. This taught her from an early age to hide her emotions, a trait she uses to this day.
The cheetah mantle descended upon her after her first sexual activity which is also around the time her parents were killed. The following year was difficult, learning about--and hiding--her powers and dealing with the loss of her family. She spent the remainder of her teenage years in boarding schools while a trustee ran the company. When she turned 21 and should have inherited the company she found herself locked out and the company under the control of organized crime. That's when she decided on an alter ego, Hellcat, to root out the criminals from her company. Now she has her company back and is more wealthy than ever, but still alternates between the carefree Hellcat and the reserved Veronica.
Obviously none of that came out on the pages of Reflector, but that's where she's coming from. As I said before, that split personality was difficult to write and I don't feel like I came close to nailing it. I think if I ever revisit this trio, resolving the divide in personalities between Veronica and Hellcat would be a necessary theme.
By contrast, Kate/Sleuth was far more straightforward but I wonder if in part that's because I didn't delve deeply enough into her character. Being a super genius would be incredibly isolating because she's operating on a whole other level than everyone around her. That's one reason why she focuses on hacking. It's a solitary pursuit. However, she's so much more than a hacker and we didn't get to see her potential in this story either. The Sleuth isn't a toe-to-toe hero like Hellcat or Reflector. I feel like she spends more time collecting info, predicting criminal activity, and tipping off the more physical heroes to do the actual apprehensions. That being said, sometimes nothing beats first hand knowledge, so she's learned to protect herself with a variety of gadgets.
Finally, in many ways Jake was the easiest to write. What you see is what you get. He's a former accountant who found himself with powers and registered with the government because he wants to do the right thing. One thing that changed from the outline to the final draft was a whole scene I cut after the initial fight. In this scene we learn he owns a nightclub with a private entrance to his office, which he can use to mask his nightly hero activity. The nightclub used to be owned by a lieutenant of criminal boss Bishop (more on him later) but Sleuth helped the government take it away due to tax evasion. Veronica bought it at government auction through a shell corporation and sold it to Jake for a dollar. Even though it was good worldbuilding, I decided it read too much like an info dump that slowed the pacing so I axed the whole scene.
I namedropped Bishop several times as a criminal boss. In my mind he's modeled after Marvel's Kingpin, but with the added hitch of being immortal. So maybe more like Ras al Ghul, now that I think about it.
If you couldn't tell from the description, Buzzkill's power is to dampen all electrical signals within a certain radius. Gooon (say the three "o"s are intentional) can turn into a big blob of goo, making him a useful burglar and difficult to hit and keep imprisoned. I wont' lie. I may have giggled manically when I thought up the Rodent.
In an earlier draft I'd really wanted that fight in front of the police station to be with a bunch of octopi. The idea of fighting human-sized octopi villains just seemed so gonzo and perfect for this setting. Ultimately it didn't make as much sense as Rodent staging a jail break so I had to drop the idea other than as passing reference to Octobrain (who I really wanted to name Doc Oc, but for the trademark). If I ever write a follow-up, I WILL have a fight with at least one octopus.
This blog post contains no spoilers for Reflector, so feel free to read either before or after the story itself.
Reflector is my first superhero-themed story, and very quickly I ran up against issues I'd never considered in how costumed heroes would work in the modern world.
One of the early throw-away lines in the story referred to Reflector as a federalized hero and Hellcat as a Vigilante. This stemmed from the long-discussed issue among comics fans of how our justice system could prosecute criminals that were caught and left by heroes. My answer was that some heroes would have to be "deputized" to act in an official capacity. Taking this to its logical conclusion, Reflector and other powered heroes are federal Marshals. Their identities have been vetted by a government agency and they can submit video testimony in uniform that will stand up in court. Reflector takes this a step further and wears a body cam that he activates while acting in an official capacity.
By contrast, other heroes have chosen to remain vigilantes. They have no legal standing when it comes to apprehending criminals, but to them stopping the crime is good enough. Hellcat and Sleuth have taken this route because they values their privacy far too much to risk disclosing it to a government agency. At the time he signed up, Jake figured he had far less to lose.
Yes, the "registered vs unregistered" hero scenario was explored in Marvel's Civil War event. In retrospect it was an idea worth exploring but the timing and execution left something to be desired. In Reflector's world, vigilantism is a "don't ask/don't tell" situation. There are still more vigilantes than federalized heroes, so for the most part they are recognized as a useful function. As long as they don't cross a line into murder or unnecessary violence, they are mostly ignored by the law. Marvel's Punisher--a character I like quite a bit--would be targeted by federalized heroes for capture and prosecution in this world.
There's another problem that I struggled with internally but never explored in the pages because it was just another detail that would drag the pacing down. How can a hero maintain a secret identity in a world filled with cameras? It seems like every other business has security cameras, and practically every person on the street has a cell phone camera. In this environment, how can a hero react to an emergency by changing into costume and jumping into the fray? It wouldn't take much for a reporter to backtrack through all the videos posted to social media to find the one person who ducks into a bathroom and comes out a hero. For a well motivated supervillain I can only imagine it would be trivial.
This is something that might be worth exploring in a subsequent story, but in Reflector I purposefully hand-waved the whole dilemma. My current thinking is that Jake's "smart threads" clothing is advanced tech that not only allows him to change his look from civilian attire to uniformed hero, but also includes some sort of video blurring tech. This too is problematic because all someone would have to do is follow the guy who looks blurry on camera, so clearly I have some more consideration to do there.
I might just have to face the facts that in a camera-saturated world, hero secret identities would become a thing of the past. In Reflector I already alluded to the fact that the heroes Top Hat and Houndstooth had gone public with their identities. This is definitely a facet of the world worth further exploration.
Thanks for exploring Reflector's world with me. I hope you read the story, and if you liked it (or didn't) please vote and leave a comment.
I have a confession to make. I'm happily married, but I've been reading a lot of cheating wives stories here on SOL. Like, a LOT. A well done cheating wife story makes you feel a whole range of emotions, from joy to grief. When written well, it's very compelling stuff. Also, most (but certainly not all) cheating wife stories end with the protagonist "trading up" to someone more loyal, loving--and usually more attractive--than the cheating wife. Perversely, well done cheating wife stories are actually stories of hope, demonstrating that pain is temporary and life gets better.
With that background in mind, I can explain that I've been a lurker here on SOL for a few years now and lately I've felt like I should write something to give back to the community, but I've been stuck as to what. There is no shortage of cheating wife stories here at SOL and I didn't feel like I had anything new or original to add.
That brings us to the morning a month or so ago at the gym. My mind was wandering as I tried to keep from dying on the stair climber and my thoughts landed on And Soon My Evil Plan will be Complete by Stultus. If you liked my story Reflector and haven't read this, stop immediately and check it out. This is one of those stories that grows on me more each time I read it, and I've probably read it half a dozen times. It is probably my favorite story on SOL. It's just pitch perfect.
Anyhow, there I was musing this superhero-genre story whilst struggling to control my breathing on the infernal stair machine, when I was struck like a bolt from the blue. Out of all the cheating wives stories I'd read, I hadn't read a single one wrapped in a superhero setting. Finally I'd found something new to say.
Warning, if you have NOT read Reflector yet, stop reading here as the rest of this post contains spoilers. You have been warned.
Another element of cheating wives stories is the cheater experiencing some sort of justice. Maybe it's because in real life there are all sorts of injustices that go unanswered (or if they are answered it's not in a way we can see or appreciate). "Burn the bitch" is a whole SOL sub-genre, but even in reconciliation stories the cheater has to at least feel genuine remorse for the reader to feel satisfaction. Here in a superhero story I could explore the ultimate karma, for the hero to make the cheating wife feel all the grief that she had caused.
With the idea set, the rest quickly fell into place. I knew I wanted our hero to end up with two women to make up for the one he lost because I'm a guy and susceptible to guy fantasy math: if one is good then more is better. (In real life though, never in a million years.) By the end of the day I'd written an outline of 10 scenes and started hammering out the story. There were a few minor changes along the way, but for the most part what you read is what I envisioned from the beginning.
In a day or two I'll post some behind the scenes stuff about the superhero setting. This is the first superhero story I've ever written and I had some revelations along the way.