application to capeandcowl

[holographics]

[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Kal
AGE: 22
JOURNAL: queensland
IM: walkthedawn
PLURK: onlydawn
E-MAIL: otherpromise@gmail.com
RETURNING: N/A

[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Harper Temple | Madame Mirage
SERIES: Madame Mirage
CHRONOLOGY: Post-Issue 6 (end of the series)
CLASS: Hero

BACKGROUND:
The world of Madame Mirage is very similar to the real Earth but with notable differences. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, scientists began to create highly advanced technology in the hopes of forming the century's newest group of heroes. They would be the protectors of the world, equipped to deal with any and all problems. Unfortunately, the technology - called mega-tech - gave rise to highly advanced criminal activities and warfare. The world governments finally decided to put an end to this technology, banning production and making it illegal to be a hero (or a villain) in any sense of the word if they went outside of law enforcement. The heroes, dutiful to the end, gave themselves up and went to prison. While some of the criminals were rounded up, quite a few of them went into hiding and others became "legitimate" corporations like Aggressive Solutions International (ASI). The scientists who produced mega-tech went underground and were convinced to either discontinue their work or put it up on the black market. Some even went so far as to get government grants and permission to continue their work without fear of being arrested.

Angela and Harper Temple, the two daughters of one of the founding mega-tech scientists (who went on to become one of the heroes) came out of graduate school and went on to create a company called Templetech. Though small and mostly unknown at first, the two girls worked to follow in the footsteps of their father. Angela was the face of the company while Harper was its technician and inventor. They started to create more advanced technology, skirting the rules and making an invention that couldn't really fit the category of "mega-tech". It was a cloaking device that they called the Ellison Project, as a nod to Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man." A man named T.J. Whitaker was hired through the government to act as their liasion and guard through all of this and they became fast friends.

Angela, unlike Harper, was always thinking of the PR. But she was also irresponsible, going out and partying and selling their work to whomever would listen. She had a nasty habit of mixing business with pleasure, much to Harper's chagrin. She would eventually get the attention of Robert Rhodes, a man who worked for ASI. Angela convinced Rhodes to come for a tour of their facility and she eagerly told Harper that he agreed. Suspicious, as she couldn't find a Wiki entry or anything about ASI, Harper reluctantly let her sister bring Rhodes in.

It became clear very quickly that something was wrong; Rhodes already knew about the Ellison Project without Angela telling him and despite it being their secret. He said he wanted to buy the company and all of its shares, plus all of its projects and the girl's time and work. Harper, infuriated, tried to convince Angela to drop the guy and tell him to take a hike. He was bad news. But Rhodes insisted and when Harper refused again, he shot and killed Angela. Distraught, Harper swore she'd kill him and he shot her too. The entire place was torched and the Ellison Project was taken. The girls were left to burn. ...Or so they thought.

Harper, being the suspicious girl she was, took the gauntlet called the M-Band, the new Ellison Project piece they were working on, and projected a hologram of herself so she could keep an eye on Rhodes. Sure enough, he tried to kill them, and so Harper lived. The M-Band was so much more than the old Ellison Project: it could scan people's bodies, take uploaded data and brain impulses, mimic their voice patterns perfectly, and could create lifelike and solid illusions from light to creat holograms of people. Rhodes didn't get a hold of it, thankfully, but with little time to spare, Harper could only do so much with it. Desperate, she uploaded Angela's brain impulses, scanned her body, and copied her voice so that she could live on artificially with Harper. She fled the lab and let it burn.

But things couldn't end there. Harper was obsessed with revenge and wanted to make them pay for ruining her life and killing her sister. Fueled by her sister's hologram, the only thing she had left of Angela, she trained for years to hone her body into a fighting machine. She tweaked the M-Band and made it even more powerful, making it capable of using force fields to allow the "mirage" to feel real when touched. She could even manipulate force fields to allow the "mirage" to hold objects and use them like a normal person could. She created Madame Mirage in the image of her sister, caricaturized with large breasts and an impossibly perfect body to immediately grab people's attentions. (Admittedly, this is also because Harper read comics as a child and decided to make Mirage into a facsimile of the seductress noir female in the guise of her sister.) Now, when she sought revenge, the last thing her enemies would see would be Angela Temple laughing in their faces before she killed them.

Harper's training and work on the M-Band paid off. She taught herself to use guns and a hi-tech sword so she could back Madame Mirage up in combat. The M-Band could only project light up to 400 yards (give or take) and so she would need to follow the illusion everywhere, even if it could cloak her and keep her invisible. She needed to be ready to face ASI.

ASI was a group of mega-tech criminals who finally decided to manipulate their way to the top. They swindled money, kidnapped, blackmailed people and, obviously, killed to get the resources and technology they wanted. Harper would start from the bottom and work her way to the top.

All of the names of ASI aren't listed, but the first employee killed in the comics is Vinnie Loomis. A racketeer, hitman, and thief, Madame Mirage shot him down when he tried to flee from her. No one knew her name or what she looked like, but word was quickly spreading that someone was killing off ASI employees. Abraham Coyle, head of ASI, had everyone looking into it, but several people under his employ were getting restless. The federal government was breathing down his neck, waiting for him to slip up and he couldn't lose anyone else. He contacted Roger Maitland, the invisible money man of ASI, to tell him of the news...but Maitland was already planning to leave. He spent years skimming the tops of ASI accounts and their work to give himself and extra salary. He had it all planned out to the second of how he'd jet away into another country. He was even going to have his girlfriend killed so she couldn't squeal.

Harper, and Madame Mirage, however, was one step ahead of him. She impersonated his secretary and his limo driver, following him to the restaurant where his girlfriend would be murdered. Harper saved her while Madame Mirage continued to act as the limo driver, waiting for Maitland to get in before she took off. Harper followed in her own vehicle to the airport, letting Mirage confront Maitland for all of his crimes. She then faded away from the cab and let the car crash. For added flair, they set the tarmac on fire and disappeared in the resulting explosion, leaving behind two M's in the flames.

She sent a message to Coyle and ASI, telling them that none of them were safe and that they'd all be hunted down, one by one. Her next victim was Tom Ragg, whom she poisoned with botulism in his food once she got the information she needed. He led her to her next target. Dude, Maitland's hired thug and one of Coyle's best men, and Mousetrap, another assassin, were eager to take her down. They set a trap for Mirage at a movie premiere party where they planned to kidnap the star for ransom. Mirage stepped in, impersonating the star in question, but she revealed herself to Moustrap and let herself walk into his plan. Again, knowing how he operated, she used her illusions to separate Mousetrap from the group. She impersonated Dude, got him alone, and then sliced his throat open and left him at the bar to die. She slipped out unnoticed.

Next came Lisa Gonzalez, the Brown Recluse. Mirage kidnapped her when she moved in to assassinate a target, tied her up in a basement, and tortured her by lighting a stick of dynamite in her mouth to get her composure to break. Lisa, like all of the others, had the ability to use her nails to cut through multiple kinds of bonds easily, but she could also dip them into poison and kill others with them by breaking the skin through a scratch or two. She interrogated Lisa and then decided to test her: if Lisa could slice through the ties on her wrists and get to Mirage's gun, she'd willingly let the game end.

To pass the time, Mirage told her the story of Angela and Harper, eventually revealing herself to be Harper in disguise at the time. Lisa broke free and tried to take the gun, only to find it was an illusion. Lisa begged for her life but Harper revealed that Lisa wasn't going to be let out for two reasons, the first being that she was part of ASI. But Lisa was originally a hero in a group called the Equalizers. When the mega-tech ban went into effect, the government came down hard on them and their leader, Goldwing, tried to escape. Lisa turned on him and let him be captured by the government, where he was still being held. Lisa tried to apologize but Harper shot her in the head and left her body.

Two weeks passed. Rhodes began using the Ellison Project to plant explosive devices in unknown locations to stir people into a panic and to put politicians in the hot seat. So long as no one understood where or how these terrorist attacks were occurring, or who was causing them, then they could put political pressure on everyone. Mirage appeared at one of these bombing sites to help people out of the wreckage. As cameras caught her helping, T.J., the Temple sisters' old confidant spotted her and recognized her as Angela. He began to investigate their previous whereabouts and discovered a photograph of Rhodes and Angela, realizing at last who their killer must have been. He began searching his contacts for information about the girls.

Harper finally decided to hit Coyle straight on and attacked their main meeting place. She encountered four of their group at first: Pachy-Doom, Amanda "Weeping Willow" Drutch, Gwen "Aphrodisiac" Summers, and Cotton-Eyed Joe. Pachy-Doom was a man in armor who wasn't the brightest bulb in the box. She simply tricked him into speeding through her and off of the building. Weeping Willow was a woman whose hair could be used like tentacles, restraining and choking her opponents. However, each hair had a "life" of its own, and by simply cutting them, Mirage brought her to her knees so she could be tranq'd. Aphrodisiac was next, a young woman with the ability to charm anyone with her voice, her looks, and her hypnotic eyes. Harper switched out illusions and got behind the woman, beating her and knocking her out.

Cotton-Eyed Joe, though, proved to be much more experienced. He was an old teleporter who refused to stand still. When he grappled with an illusion of Mirage, she twisted herself around and knocked him flat, though he managed to escape and go back to Coyle. Harper used the M-Band to disguise him as Mirage and to cloak his voice as her own so they didn't realize their comrade had returned. Unwittingly, Dude moved in and broke the man's back before the illusion vanished. She appeared once more at Coyle's computer out of thin air.

Mirage, now in the lion's den and outnumbered, tried to trick Coyle by pretending that she was interested in employment. Not to be fooled, Coyle had the others attack her, and Mirage duplicated herself to confuse them. While most of them fell into her trap, Tatzelwurm, a woman with poisonous bile and toxic breath exposed the "real" Mirage. Harper drew her sword and stabbed the woman through, then jumped out the window. Though she was eight floors up, her force fields were at maximum output, and so the blow to her legs was softened...though not by much. Harper walked away injured, but alive.

When she had gotten on Coyle's computer, she had downloaded all of the files on ASI members, where her father was located, and where Rhodes was. Overjoyed at their journey being almost over, Harper tried to recover, but Angela's illusion objected. Once their father was free, once ASI was gone, what would happen to her? Harper would turn off the M-Band and she wouldn't exist any longer. Harper denied this, promising to make a new form for Angela to exist in once they had the funding and the resources.

T.J.'s investigation led him to Rhodes, who was negotiating with the Russian mob in Moscow for ASI and sharing secrets of what he was doing. T.J. went to Moscow to meet with an informant about Rhodes, but the man was killed right in front of him by seemingly no one. Rhodes, cloaked with the original Ellison Project device, beat T.J. and captured him.

Harper took the information about their father and followed it to a prison facility in Nevada called Detention #108. She snuck in, using illusions of herself and Angela to cloak her movements. She took on the guise of a guard to get past initial security until she found the holding cell her father was in. He was curled on the floor in the corner, and as she went to wake him, she pulled off to blanket to see T.J. instead of her father. Rhodes appeared, proving this was all a trap. Dude snuck up behind Harper and gripped her, trying snap her back. Wounding her and knocking her out, they moved her back to their headquarters so she could be analyzed. The M-Band was bound to her arm and could only come off if Harper unlocked it herself, and so the Doctor (another ASI criminal) was order to saw it off. Harper awakened and stunned him, then used the buzz saw on him instead.

She grabbed her sword and dagger, moving through the facility to find T.J. Though she found and freed him, he was stunned to see her there and scolded her for not coming to him sooner. Harper admitted that she couldn't tell him; he'd want to see ASI employees in jail and she wanted them dead. Disappointed, he was willing to help bring in some troops to stop ASI and Coyle if she could provide a diversion. She gladly assisted by cloaking him as Dude to get him out while she went to confront Coyle. He was prepared for her, having already suited up to take her out. He revealed his plan to use the Ellison Project to cloak people to get them past securities all over the world in order to bring governments to their knees.

Harper let Coyle call his employees in and then told them that it was too late: the authorities were there to take them in. Coyle abandoned them to try and fly away, but Harper took him down. Dude, angered that Coyle was leaving him to be the scapegoat again, took off after him and beat him down. Harper found Rhodes, removing her M-Band to fight him on her own and without illusions. She easily beat him down and then took off his head with her sword. Without a word, she slipped away and the other criminals were rounded up to be sent to prison.

Before T.J. left, she disguised herself as a worker to leave him an encrypted message. In it, she told him not to look for her ever again, as she was now a criminal and couldn't do the time. She asked for him to release her father from prison as well, which he did.

On the day of her father's release, she used a hologram of her and Angela to wave to her father and then disappear. Though he might have thought it as a trick of the light, she wanted him to see them one last time before she left. She promised she'd return to see him and T.J. one day once she had forgiven herself for all of the murders she had committed in the name of justice.


PERSONALITY:
Harper is a quirky young woman who everyone treats like a geek. And she is, in a sense. She read a lot of comic books, she loves science, she's an inventor, and she's always thinking. But people underestimate her potential because Harper, before the series begins, is always in Angela's shadow. She isn't as pretty as Angela, isn't as tall or busty, and she likes to stay in and work on problems. She's driven by her commitment to her father and to mega-tech, always looking for ways to stay on top of her game and to do more favors to the government for her father's freedom. Harper is always described as the brains of the operation, putting all of her energy into thinking and working instead of talking and acting. Despite this, she's not all work and no play; she and Angela are very jovial and loving towards one another, and the reader gets the sensation that their bond is very deep. They never mention a mother, and so Harper only has Angela. They graduated at the same time, and though Angela is obviously older, this means they were also classmates. They shared every aspect of their lives together.

By her own admission, Harper is terrible at public speaking. She gets a little too nervous in front of people and though she can talk her way through it, she also gets her tongue tied on all of the terminology that she loses her audience. They'd much rather see sexy Angela talk about a product, and so Harper is often overlooked and underestimated. As the series of Madame Mirage progresses, she uses this underestimation to her advantage; no one thinks to look at the little genius in the corner. Instead, they stare at Mirage and never think to suspect that Harper is controlling her every movement.

Before the series begins, Harper is also shown to be very street-savvy in comparison to Angela, which is surprising. She's also much more suspicious of the outside world. This is partly to do with her trauma over losing her father and her fear over being discovered and ruined like him, but it also has to do with her just being aware of how the world works. Their father was betrayed by a comrade. Angela, though Harper loves her, is irresponsible and mixes business with pleasure. It's pretty obvious that Harper is always afraid that Angela is going to get in with the wrong crowd and expose them, and that's what happens. Angela never thinks that Rhodes could be bad news, but Harper, who has come too far to be ruined, knows trouble when she sees it. She immediately distrusts Rhodes and even hides the M-Band from him so he can't see it and take it. She even goes so far as to cloak herself and hide while her hologram does the talking because she refuses to think he's innocent. And that's how she lives in the end.

And this is where things get a little horrifying. Harper, for all of her brains and quirkiness, for all that she can't speak in public and is suspicious of new people, changes herself to be like Angela. She stops worrying about stupid things like public speaking and trivial matters. Her sister is dead; she doesn't have the luxury to be weak any longer. She toughens her nerve and makes herself stronger, ready to handle anything. But beyond that, she starts to live and breathe her sister all the time. Angela's illusion is always walking around, talking to her, like she never even left. Harper isn't in denial that Angela died, but she refuses to be alone. She's too scared to be without her sister, to be alone without her family. She can't deal with that sort of emptiness. She listens to the illusion's advice and carries conversations with her, even going so far as to promise to make her a new body or vessel to live in. That's scary dedication.

She even takes it one step further. By masquerading as Madame Mirage and using Angela's physique as her template, she adopts Angela's mannerisms, her quirks, her way of speaking so that no one can tell the difference. As Mirage, she is poignant, proud, assertive and seductive. She's charming and flattering, though she is also cruel. Harper - as herself and Mirage - doesn't skimp any longer; she's fully willing to frighten and hurt people to get her information, and then she'll kill them. She expresses guilt over this in the long run, claiming: "T.J.'s right; I'm not a killer. But I became one to bring justice to those I love." She hates what she does but she has the drive and determination to do it because no one else will. She has no one but herself to rely on and that's how it will always be. She won't even let T.J. help, partially because she knows he'll never let her kill, and because she doesn't want to lose someone else. If she pretends that she's alone (besides Angela/Mirage), then she'll never lose anyone else again.

In fact, it's this fear that makes Harper into a control freak. She has to be on top of a situation all the time and at least four steps ahead of her enemies. One misstep will get her - or someone else - killed and then she'll let Angela down. She needs to know everything from the inside out. Sure, Harper's extremely intelligent and quick on her feet, so she could come up with a decent plan in a matter of minutes, but that's too risky in her line of work. She can't afford to mess up. When she goes into a mission, she does it knowing every exit, every entrance, where all of the pawns are in place and every possible reaction scenario she can come up with. She might not ever be perfect in her execution, but that's what she has illusions for. Small mistakes sometimes will be made. But she can't deal with any huge margin of error with so much riding on her. That's why she's so meticulous at her information gathering, at covering her tracks, and in needing to control every step of the situations she puts herself into.

Through her M-Band, Harper can bring Angela out to the forefront. There's never any solid proof that this is Angela herself, though the illusion hints that Harper downloaded "her soul" into the M-Band. Still, Angela is perfected here and continues to act as she always did. She's sexy, smart, charismatic, and protective of her sister. She thinks on her feet and isn't afraid to show people what she's made of. She's in charge. She's strong, bright, and alluring. She's a "drama queen" according the Harper, always needing to add a little flair to what she does. She is Madame Mirage's template, and so she and Mirage are practically the same.

But there's a darker side to Angela that suggests a much more sinister undertone. She's learned from her mistakes; she's not going to trust anyone outside of Harper any longer. Beyond that, she frequently keeps her sister from doing anything kind: when Harper saves people and helps them out of the bombing explosion, Angela scolds her for doing so and tells her to stay on task. She doesn't want Harper to be a hero or to do these things. All she wants is her revenge. She doesn't want Harper to stray too far from her. She even criticizes their father's previous actions as a hero, saying it got him nowhere but prison. She may be nice to Harper alone, but she's manipulative. She knows how to put the charm on people, even her sister, to get them to do what she wants. She knows just what to say and do. Still, she loves Harper and never wants to see her hurt. That much will always be true.

Again, Angela isn't really there; they're simply her brain impulses given form when Harper allows for her sister to walk around. If Harper didn't use the M-Band, if she shut it off, then Angela would cease to exist. She can't do anything outside of the M-Band's illusions. In fact, when Harper's unconscious, she imagines Angela there beside her...and then we never see her again outside of Mirage's cloaking over Harper.

Harper even claims that even though it was Angela's face and voice, it was always Harper's actions and motivations, that she was responsible for everything, every decision and every plan was her own. She was never far from Mirage and often was Mirage herself. She's the one who killed people, who kidnapped, tortured, and interrogated ASI employees. It was all her, not Angela. Even if Harper feels guilty - and she does, of course - it just goes to prove that she was in charge of everything and she's fully capable of being a killer, a savior, a hero, and a villain. She's adaptable in every way because she has to be and she's strong, despite her flaws, because she still perseveres despite all of the pain and trauma.


POWER:
Harper doesn't have any powers but she does have the M-Band on her wrist. Without it, she has nothing.

What it can do:

Scanning: In just a few seconds, she can scan an object, an animal, or a person, and record their voice in order to project an illusion of them. Other things can be uploaded, like brain impulses and data.
Illusions: By refracting the light, it can create perfect 3D and rounded illusions of people, objects, and animals.
Invisibility: It can make its wearer invisible.
Voice Duplication: Once recording their voice, the M-Band synthesizes their vocal patterns to provide an exact replication of the voice. It can't mimic their personality and mannerisms, though.
Force Fields: The device can project force fields to either allow the illusions to pick up and use objects, cushion the wearer of the device from harm, or be used at maximum power to destroy wooden and stone walls with a blast. It cannot, however, protect the wearer from bullets and return blasts often disrupt the magnetic field and light refraction to break the force fields.


Since Harper has the M-Band with her, as she never takes the device off, she'll be able to do all of these things anyway. To make it simple, her city powers will be just that: illusion, force fields, and voice mimicry. She will NOT be able to make herself invisible without the M-Band.

If that needs to be changed, or if the M-Band is enough, let me know. I also figure that they'll need permissions posts to let her take people's forms as illusions, so there'll be one for that too.


[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

[Harper's not dumb. She knows she could be in a lot of trouble just by exposing her real name and identity. Instead, she masks her voice as Madame Mirage on the communication device so no one will recognize her. And if they do...then it'll be just as well to figure out who's met Mirage before.

And so, when the video feed turns on, the network can get a good look at the dark haired woman with blue eyes staring at them from under the brim of her wide hat. Her voice sounds coy and yet almost sultry in tone when she speaks, too. She's laying it on thick for this one.]

My, and I was just thinking about how to spend a vacation back home. I won't go so far as to say that this is the answer to my prayers, but it's certainly all very interesting.

[She makes a quiet sound that's almost like a chuckle.]

Lovely pamphlet, by the way.

[Other heroes in the city are totally cool, all right? Mirage isn't a comic book reader but Harper is. She's kind of freaking out at the prospect.]

A city full of heroes and villains. I bet you all have quite a few stories to tell, don't you? Adventures, how you've saved someone or gotten a cat out of a tree, or how you've murdered someone... But what I'm interested in is how you've all managed to stay in one place and not blown anything up in the process. [She smiles.] Or am I jumping ahead of myself?

[She shrugs loftily.]

I suppose it's too much to hope that they accept money from my "universe" here. Do they? I believe I'm going to need something else to wear with all of these people staring.



LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

Deep breaths, Harper. It's going to be okay.

She didn't ask for a relocation when she went to bed that night but hey, she was already on the run. This could be the answers to her prayers, ideally. Of course, that was assuming she knew where the hell she was in the first place. As much as people claimed that this might have been similar to her Earth and she should be fine - New York is missing; that is NOT fine - she still couldn't shake her anxiety. It was like being alone again after Angela left her. She didn't like it, though she wasn't fearful so much as uncertain.

...Oh God. Angela.

She grabbed her M-Band and tried to see if she could get her sister's illusion to join her. "Come on, Angie--" she muttered aloud, realizing too late that she was starting to look like a lunatic with a sword on her back, talking to herself in a park full of people. She paused, glancing at some of the people who were giving her odd looks. No one looked too offended, thankfully, and they shrugged her off as "just a weird girl", but it was too much of a risk. She straightened and kept walking, cursing herself silently.

They say the first sign of schizophrenia is talking to voices, Harper.

But she had gone so long talking to Angela all the time that it felt so strange stepping down somewhere completely alone and without any control over the situation. She barely had any money to her name right now; it was all in some numbered account somewhere that she'd stashed away under an assumed name for fear the government was going to force her and Angie underground. She wasn't going to be on top of her game for a long, long time in this place. Not without some sort of strategy or help.

She could invent things and sell them. That might work. She could get a lot of money for little things, too, like a spy pen or a voice mimic. She could get a job somewhere for a while, make herself look like some cute red-head secretary at a law firm to get information, and she'd just save as much money as possible until she could find some way home.

But...what if she couldn't go back? She was already wanted. She was a murderer. Wouldn't it be safer to stay here, so long as it was safe? It was still Earth. Sort of.

She rubbed the back of her neck. This was all too complicated for her right now. She needed a hot dog and a soda, to sit and gather herself. She needed time to process all of this new information. With a sigh, she looked down at the dog tags hanging around her neck and looked them over.

Okay. New home first, then food. That...was a start.



FINAL NOTES:
I know that this is technically "two characters" but, as I said, Angela doesn't really exist outside of an illusion. If this isn't going to work, that's okay! I don't mind it if Harper can't project Angela but can still project Madame Mirage instead.