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| User: | _rocket_butt_ (962445) Life's a Blast
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| Name: | Sam Guthrie | ||||||||||
| Location: | Westchester, New York, United States | ||||||||||
| Bio: | This is an adult role-playing journal and posts may contain adult concepts and content. Sam Guthrie is property of Marvel. By reading the content of this journal you are certifying that you are above the age of majority in your country of residence. OOC Information Your Name: JC Are you over 18? Yup Contact Information: AIM witherthougoest, email witherthougoest at gmail dot com Writing Samples: IC Information Character Full Name: Samuel Zachary Guthrie Character Code Name: Cannonball Nickname(s): Sam, Sammy, Rocketbutt, Crash Age/Birthday: 23 (2/24) Sexuality: Bisexual. This used to bother him, but who anyone’s attracted to, even him, dropped to the bottom of the priority list about when his family started dying Ethnicity/Place of Origin: Cumberland, Kentucky Colony role: Sam works one of the supply teams, as he can shelter himself and others in his blast shield and transport pretty large loads under power, and maintains the colony’s small fleet of vechicles. Human or Mutant? mutant PB: Steve Byers Relatives: Ty Guthrie(deceased), Lucinda Guthrie (deceased), Paige(21), Jay(19), Joelle(deceased) Lizzie(15), Melody(13), Jeb(12), Caro(11), Lewis and Ann (8) Religious Affiliation: Southern Baptist...a bit lapsed Mutation: Thermo-Chemical Energy Field Propulsion: Cannonball possesses the ability to bodily generate thermo-chemical energy and release it from his skin. This energy is used as thrust to cause his body to be propelled through the air at great heights and speeds up to approximately 700mph with considerable maneuverability. At first he could only release this energy from his feet, but now he can fire it from some other parts of his body, to a wide variety of affects. When using his power for flight he can carry somewhere around a ton. Blast Field: This energy also manifests itself as an impenetrable and virtually indestructible “blast field” and when it’s active he’s pretty much unstoppable and neither he nor anything or anyone he's carrying/in physical contact with can be harmed. He’s also reached the point where he can use this blast-field to function as a personal shield and extend it to encompass no more than two others who are no farther than three feet away from him without having to fly, allowing him to shape the field around another person to either protect or imprison them. He has started to have some luck at absorbing outside kinetic impact into his own energy supply (only while powered up), and then re-channeling it to increase the bludgeoning power of his blows or create explosive shock waves upon impact, but his control of the power of these blows can be erratic so he doesn't often risk it. Immortality: Sam’s not aware of it yet, but he’s apparently incapable of dying by normal means. No matter what the cause of death (unless he were to be infected with the virus) his body will regenerate and he’ll wake up shortly thereafter as good as new. He does not, however, possess any kind of healing factor and any injuries he receives short of death heal the same as anyone else's, scars and all. He's stopped aging as well, though that’s not likely to become obvious for a while yet. General Limitations: He can blast at full power for approximately 4 and a half hours, somewhat longer if he reduces speed, which gives him energy reserves sufficient to make a cross-country trip without having to stop and rest, but not quite enough to make a transatlantic trip. However, if he completely exhausts his reserves it can take days for him to recover fully. Extending his power to shield or imprison another he's not in physical contact with and without allowing his blast field to fully manifest is much more of a strain and he can only do it for relatively short periods or in short, repeated bursts - at most ten to fifteen minutes continuously, depending on how far he's extended it. When using his power for flight, or in any way that allows his blast field to fully manifest, he's surrounded by a wash of searing heat and flames, so it's not safe for him to take off too near anything or anyone. Significantly adapted from: http://en.marveldatabase.com/Cannonball_%28Sam_Guthrie%29#Powers_and_Abilities Other Special Skills/Talents: Sam grew up in a home where money was always tight and if it broke you fixed it and if you needed it you figured out how to make it yourself if possible, so he’s pretty adept at basic carpentry, joinery, plumbing and assorted household repairs, and if you want something made or mended he’s a good one to go to (though he can’t sew to save his life). He’s also got quite a knack for all things mechanical, and was as at home poking around the Blackbird’s engines and guidance systems before it got thrashed as he was under the hood of a truck back before the military blew it to hell. He's a pretty good shot, and does some hunting - to supplement their food supplies, not for sport - when he has time. He’s also got a fair amount of experience with basic farm chores...and can play the harmonica passably. History: Samuel Guthrie was born the eldest of ten children in the heart of coal-mining country in Cumberland, Kentucky, a small, close knit hill-town that barely qualifies as a blip on the map. His childhood was noisy, crowded, and boisterous, and money was always in short supply but love never was. He was always 'the responsible one' and helped look after the littles or worked to bring in extra money when things were especially tight but, over all, there was nothing really remarkable about any of it until he was fifteen. That was when his father died of black lung and he stepped in to fill the role of 'man of the family' without a moment's hesitation. He didn't bother to tell his Momma or notify the school (where he was making excellent grades and showing promise of educating himself out of the dead end of a miner's life), just showed up to take his father's shift the Monday after the funeral. He wasn’t quite sixteen, but he was man height if not quite man sized and the foreman knew how badly the Guthries needed the money. He eyed the teenager up once and then nodded him into the elevator where the other men made space for him with a few welcoming back slaps and some muttered condolences. They paid him under the table and nothing more was ever said on the subject. He spent almost a year in the mines, up before dawn and working all day in the dark, home after sundown to help with homework and read bedtime stories or sing lullabyes to the littles. Coal dust ground so deep into his pores he thought it would never come out. About ten months into what he thought was going to be his lifetime spent down in the dark, though, the shaft he and another man were working in started to collapse. Rock falling around them and the air filling with dust so thick you could barely see, he and the other man clung to each other as they scrabbled towards the exit. It was too late, though, and in desperation Sam closed his eyes and prepared to die, and leave his family bereft again...and then his power manifested. Still clinging to the other man he shot through the rain of debris, blowing the rubble clogging the shaft head away in a blast of thermo-chemical energy that launched the pair of them a good twenty feet into the air before they arched down and plowed a furrow in the rocky soil outside the mine. There were dozens of witnesses and the whole affair raised quite a ruckus. Some folks tried to explain it away as a pocket of coal gas going up and blowing them free, the fact that they were both unharmed other than a few scratches obviously due to the intervention of God, but with mutants a known quantity for over a decade by then that didn’t hold up for long. He holed up at home for a few days after, talking things over and over and over with Momma and trying to sort out what to do. In the end, though, there wasn’t much of a choice. They needed the money and the mine was the only place paying. Fortunately, though the camaraderie had evaporated, he was still allowed back. The locals respected his Momma and pitied his family, and he had saved a man. It was hard, though. Going back down in the dark was bad enough, made doubly difficult by everyone knowing what he was. Fortunately, it was only a couple of days later that he was invited to move to Xavier’s. He finished out high school at the mansion, managing to catch up so he wasn’t quite a year behind anymore by the end, despite working odd jobs for money to send back home to Momma. He also got his mutation pretty much completely under control, though that took a bit more work than catching up in school had. He went on to college to work on an engineering degree, and was in his last year when everything went to hell. He and Paige had barely gotten back to the mansion after another Christmas at home when the virus hit. It spread so fast, and by the time anyone realized what was happening and he and Paige managed to get back home it was too late. Momma was dead, Joelle was gone, and the littles were barricaded against the shambling hordes of what had once been their neighbors. The closest thing to any kind of consolation was that Momma’d been killed outright and they didn’t have to put her down. They buried her, what was left of her, with Daddy, jacked a school bus and took the littles back to the mansion. It was a hell of a road trip, and there were times he wasn’t sure they were going to make it. He wishes more than just about anything that the littles had never seen some of the things they did those first few weeks. He wishes Paige hadn’t either, but he had to give up any delusions of protecting her early on. It’s the two of them taking care of the littles now and, if he’s honest with himself, if it weren’t for needing to take care of them he’s not sure he would have managed to keep it together at all those first few weeks and months, especially after they finally found Joelle, dead in the wreckage of a bolthole she’d taken refuge in with her anti-mutant friends. Finding that out was almost more painful than her death. Almost. He sometimes wonders how any of them managed, but they did. Built the wall, fortified it and defended it, braved the chaos beyond it to scavenge for the supplies they so desperately needed to keep everyone safe and alive. And slowly, almost painfully so, things came together. They’ve got a small ‘fleet’ of vans, trucks and buses that they use for scavenging and trade missions, and Sam keeps them meticulously maintained. The gas won’t last forever, but while it does they’ll have vehicles to use it in. He checks each one almost obsessively both before and after each run out past the gates, unwilling to risk that anyone’s life will be endangered by something so simple as mechanical failure, and maintains them in perfect working order between times. He also helps Tony with poking around at the remains of the Blackbird when either of them has time for it. His other main job is to work one of the supply teams, going out one to three times a week, depending, to forage for supplies in the ruin that once was New York City. They’ve gotten it down to a science after so long, and some trips are almost - almost - routine. Others are brutal beyond anything he ever could have imagined just a couple years ago. The scouts try to steer them clear of any of the infected, but it isn’t always possible, and they intermittently end up having to fight their way through. Worse, though, is when one of the roving bands of human raiders manages to chance across them. He learned early on, the hard way, that if they let these people - almost more animal than human, most of them - escape when they repel their attacks, it'll just be some other group of innocents who pays the price for their mercy. He'll never forget coming across the butchered remains of a small group of refugees, every item of any value stripped from their bodies...and the body of one raider stripped and left behind by his companions as of no more value then their victims when he was killed in the attack. Sam had let the man run away just the week before when his pack had botched an attack on them. He’s still not comfortable using deadly force, but he recognizes that sometimes it’s the only option and uses it without hesitation when it is. Things aren’t good, it’s hard to imagine things ever actually being good again, but they’re better. They’re as safe as it’s possible to be in a world gone to hell, they’ve got a reliable source of unlimited power, they’ve got supplies that will last them for a good long while even if they had to discontinue foraging for any reason, and they’ve managed to become at least partially self-sufficient. They’ve built a community. It’s a bruised and battered one, but it looks to have every hope of continuing indefinitely into the future, and he’s started to let himself hope, just a little, that Hank will actually succeed in finding a cure...or the infected will finally manage to die out for lack of new hosts for the virus. There are only so many people left in the world, sadly enough, it doesn’t seem like it can possibly go on forever. Personality: Sam’s defining features are probably his personal loyalty and his over-developed sense of responsibility. It’s part oldest child syndrome and part just him, and he’ll do anything – pretty much literally – for his family or the people he’s adopted as family. And even moreso now. Sam’s incredibly task oriented and likes to have something to do at all times, preferably something to make or something to fix, and when he’s not on a supply run, preparing for a supply run, or obsessively making sure all the vehicles are safe and ready to be used for the next supply run, he tends to find something else to keep him occupied. He grew up in a home where money was always tight and if it broke you fixed it and if you needed it you figured out how to make it if possible, so he’s pretty adept at basic carpentry, joinery, and household repairs, and if you want something made or mended he’s a good one to go to. He used to love working on anything mechanical and was as much at home poking around a jet’s guts and guidance systems as he was under the hood of a car, and he still is, but he does it now because it needs to be done and he needs something to do. He used to be more than a little uptight about being bi, it was always okay for other people but it was hard to accept in himself, having been raised a dutiful church going boy in the heart of the bible belt. He gave up caring about that a good while back, though. About when people started getting turned into cannibalistic monsters. Not that it really matters under the circumstances, but were it ever to be relevant he just couldn’t care less any more. He's a natural leader, though he doesn't really realize it, and has a tendency to take over in a tight spot in the absence of anyone older or more experienced. Probably another holdover of being the oldest and the man of the family. He’s an adrenaline junky - no great surprise given his mutation - and he does everything hard. He does still have a slight issue with claustrophobia, pitch black interiors, and being underground after his time in the mine and the cave-in, but it's faded over the years and he controls/conceals it well. If and when it comes, he’ll have a HELL of a hard time with the discovery that he’s apparently immortal. It would have been bad enough in the world as it was - he worries at things too much to miss the fact that if you’re immortal you outlive all the people you love, after all, and Sam pretty much defines himself by the people he loves - but now it’s even worse. The possibility of immortality in a world peopled by the living dead is a horror he won’t want to even imagine. Finally, he has HUGE guilt issues over Momma and Joelle dying. He should have been there, should have gotten there sooner, should have been able to do something. This isn't really helped by the fact that on bad days the littles blame him too, and don't bother to be quiet about it. If he'd been there he could have kept them safe, and even though he knows there was no reason he should have been, and that he wasn't doing anything wrong by being at the Institute, that nagging guilt is probably never going to go entirely away. Or at least not for a good few decades. Every time he goes outside the gates it's like a punch to the gut, knowing that, no matter how careful and competent they all are, something can always go wrong and this time they might not come back. This time he might leave his family alone. Though he shares a room (and frequently a bed) with the twins, on the nights after supply runs he doesn't sleep with them, if he sleeps at all. Their nightmares are bad enough without adding his own to the mix, and he either sits and watches over them or passes them off to Paige, depending. Mostly, right now, he's terrified. Terrified of failing again. Of not keeping his family and his friends safe. Of watching the infection that he sees ravaging the world outside their walls touch the people inside them as well. And of letting anyone see just how frightened he is. Being strong for those around him is pretty much all that keeps him going, and he's afraid that if he let the facade down, even for a moment, it would shatter into so many pieces he'd never get it put together again. Appearance and Presentation: Sam’s tall. He always was, but when he went on past Daddy’s 6’3” he figured things were getting a bit ridiculous. At least he’s finally filled out to match his height, and he figures bigger probably is better under present circumstances...though 6'5" is still a bit much, he figures. He spent a good few years as a beanpole, never quite managing to catch up weight-wise to his last growth spurt, but that’s definitely in the past now and he’s broad, solid, and not likely to disappear in a crowd. He’s also a walking stereotype of the strapping, wholesome farmboy: blond hair and blue eyes with a golden tan and a grin that can just about stop traffic, though it’s been a lot rarer the last few years, not to mention broad shoulders, huge hands, and a warm Kentucky drawl that he’s never bothered to try and lose. He’s also managed to outgrow the awkwardness that came from his brain never being quite on board with that last growth spurt as well, and it’s been a while since he last tripped over his own feet. He’s strong, fast, agile and damn coordinated for such a big guy, and it shows. His wardrobe is pretty much limited to jeans, t-shirts, heavy work boots, and assorted button downs that are usually thrown over a tee and not actually buttoned; basically hard-wearing, practical clothing. He’s still got his Daddy’s old vest, though it doesn’t fit so well anymore, and a leather bomber jacket he found at a thrift store before the outbreak and still wears though its seen better days. He covers every bit of skin he can and wears heavy duty gloves whenever he leaves the grounds. Established In-Game Relationships: Paige - loves him his baby sister, wishes she weren’t stuck playing Momma to his Daddy for all intents and purposes with their littlest sibs. Piotr - pretty much his best friend, and very much an honorary Guthrie after the death of his own family Bobby - another of his best friends and roomie when he first came to the mansion Open to discussing any other relationships with established characters Will you be bringing in any character-specific NPCs with your character? All the Guthrie littles - though Mel, Liz and/or Jay might end up as PCs. And Sam's dog? Who has yet to be named, but is a spaniel/retriever mutt of some description, and very enthusiastic about flushing and fetching when Sam gets or takes the time to hunt. | ||||||||||
| Schools: | None listed | ||||||||||
| Friends: | |||||||||||
| Mutual Friends: | 32: _blue_bitch_, _rocket_butt_, annelid, arsenical, becomedeath, blue_bitch, blueisbetter, chargecard, crumblin_down, doctorfuzzy, fastfood, filius_ignis, freakydeaky, frostbyte, gone_starkers, havingablast, hellshandyman, lizardbreath, meow_mix, northstarrising, notouchpolicy, pinkeye, ragin_canuck, seehowtheyrun, silver_samurai, snowflakenomore, steelreserve, stinktier, theragincajun, theyrenotpink, under_my_skin, wingin_it | ||||||||||
| Member of: | 4: devolve, devolve2, devolve2_ooc, devolve_ooc | ||||||||||
| Account type: | Free Patient | ||||||||||
