cosmos app

Player Info:
Name: Zoki
Timezone: EST (GMT -5)
Contact: PM journal

Character Info:
Name: Strong Bad
Age: Vaguely mid-20s?
AU/PG/CANON/OC: Canon + past game: Homestar Runner (dot com), with an extended history from mylittlejamjar

Key Points:

• Selfish, lazy, egotistical wrestler grows up to become the self-proclaimed lord of all that is awesome


• Runs an email column with advice and strange stories, commits several acts of petty villainy, bullies a few personalities he especially loathes, and is overall somewhat unpleasant


• Aspires to be a romantic rogue, a true villain, and generally falls short.


• Is transported to a middle school girl's dreamland of neon ponies and critters, and is horrified and disgusted by their belief in friendship and kindness


• Is befriended, despite his very best efforts to avoid that---helps that his massive ego's knocked down a few times


• Learns to let go of his evil aspirations and comes to understand the value of companionship.

History:
Little is known about Strong Bad's early years. He was the middle child of the Strong family, and the few glimpses shown of his early years showed that his unpleasant behavior began at an early age. He bullied his younger brother, morose Strong Sad, though there's conflicting evidence showing that their relationship also had its happy moments---and their relationship isn't entirely negative, even as adults. He's a master of conflicting impulses. He also acted out at a very early age, causing trouble and telling crude jokes, presumably trying to gain the world's attention even then.

As an adult, he lived a fairly mediocre life at home with his two brothers. He worked a depressingly corporate office job, cracked open the cold ones as soon as he returned home, and answered emails from his strange gaggle of fans on the internet. When he wasn't wildly exaggerating his adventures for his audience, he often got into petty villainy---locking hia poor younger brother Strong Sad in a room, trying to boot annoying neighbor Homestar Runner out of his house, setting up dangerous pyrotechnics to harass local hippie Marzipan, or harassing the townsfolk. His actions weren't uniformly negative, but he wasn't exactly a believer in friends. He had comrades and lackeys, yes, but true friendship? Not exactly.

At least, not until an after-school special on the magic of friendship attacked. He found himself stuck in the body of an obnoxiously colored pony, in the company of other critters and displaced humanfolks just like him. All stranded in the magical horsie land of Equestria. He planned on keeping up his usual position as a cool and distant outsider snarking on the proceedings, but a funny little thing got in the way: his new neighbors weren't so terrible, and he didn't need to make fun of them all. Despite his overwhelming initial unpleasantness, he found himself opening up to others in small ways---rocking out with that 80s boy who wouldn't leave him alone, becoming hero enough to rescue a bright damsel who always believed in him, and teaching human relationships to a strange woman born of chaos.

Though he resisted the community's efforts to reach out to him at first, making feeble attempts to shut down the fledgling bonds with others, Strong Bad eventually accepted the label of 'friend'. He even began to see it as a point of pride for a few of those relationships. With enough skirmishes with true evil, he even began to question his core identity---sure, he was Strong Bad, but did that mean he was a bad guy?

Mostly it just meant he was awesome. And more awesome with his pals along. That was fine by him.
Personality:
Let's start with Strong Bad's self-description for his audience back home:

"I've been described as cool, awesome, hot, video games, the hottest, and real real hot. [I] pretty much run the show around here, as well as serve as a sort of multi-purpose criminal element."

Right away, he's announced a few things to the world: his hugely inflated ego and strong sense of pride, his unwarranted self-importance, and an ambition to be feared and respected as the bad guy. There's an aura of intrigue around villains, and that power, attractiveness, and influence is what he craves

So whenever he talks about himself, he always does so in glowing terms. He believes he's the most attractive lady-magnet to ever walk the earth, the strongest wrestler to ever hit the mat, the wisest advice columnist to ever hit a newsstand, and the greatest star on a level far above anyone else.

None of these things are remotely true, but he never lets little reality checks stop him---instead, he has a vastly creative imagination that he loves to get lost in (though some may call it delusion). He'll draw comic book shrines to his manliness, tell vastly exaggerated stories without a trace of irony, and never let an insult get him down.

Deep down, though, he really does crave approval and admiration, and that's where the cracks in his self-assured armor appear. He lived for the piles and piles of emails from admirers and the opportunites to promote himself, even when the writers frequently irritated him. Being cut off from that and thrust into Ponyland showed him clearly that he needed a change.

His first instinct in his quest to gain respect is intimidation. He believes he's the toughest, and that his bark is as strong as his bite. It isn't, but it doesn't keep him from trying to shout down others he believes are in the wrong. Unfortunately for him...his attempts at intimidation mostly come across as pathetic and awkward, because he rarely has the conviction to back up a threat. His life could've continued to be a cycle of gloating, failure, and shuffling, but...

The persistence of a few brave Equestrians prevailed, and with new pony pals at his side, sharing interests and having a pleasant time, his thirst for admiration turned into something else: a need for friendship. Turns out it's not as difficult to be considerate of others as he once thought, and people have cool ideas that make him even cooler when they work together. While he still employs plenty of sarcasm and isn't above a good laugh, his advice now comes from a good place more often than not.

But don't let the new leaf fool you: he still has his old stubborn streak and hot temper to keep in check. His nastier impulses are better controlled than before, and he'll hesitate a lot before doing something downright mean, but he still has little patience for what he sees as acts of stupidity. Anyone showing recklessness will quickly drive him to anger---because he's prone to it himself, not that he'll acknowledge that.

And they need to keep their heads if they want to get through this all right.

Gem Considerations: I've chosen blue apatite for his gemstone, a simple swap for the blue gem set in his face mask. It's set on his head to symbolize his inflated ego, as well as the creativity he sometimes displays in his storytelling.

Apatite is a creativity-focused stone that also has a stabilizing effect, easing emotional pain and anger---helping to soften his rougher edges. It's not all soft, though: apatite is also a stone of ambition, though hopefully the other properties will help him to express it in a healthy way.

Power considerations:
List Three Powers You Would Like Your Character To Have:

• Drawing magic---conjuring small objects by drawing them in a sketchbook. It'll be limited to inanimate objects no bigger than him (and he's short, just under five feet tall)


• Sword-summoning


• Shapeshifting

Strong Bad will be absolutely thrilled to gain power, as the only 'powers' he ever held previously were a mysterious ability to type with boxing gloves on, and a strange bottlecap-popping power. These will both need to be regained at some point, but...as he won't have a computer, hopefully they won't affect his life too much.

Even as a pony, he was stuck as an earth pony with no real magic of his own. This is all-new and all-awesome, no matter what he gets.

Sample: Test-drivin' it...