Totes Legit Potential Backstory

So, we were tasked with creating a short story about our superheroes/villains/antiheros. I opted for a backstory. It's a couple of dates late; I originally wanted to try to do something not related to Totes Legit for once, but the powers that be-- namely, writer's block-- forced my hand. so here it is, in all it's rough-draft glory:

Totes Legit: Sort Of A Backstory

"Nothing good ever happens in grungy alleyways. At least, that's what my mom and television taught me."
A tall, incredibly pale man leans up against the corner of an old, dilapidated brick building in downtown Detrago. Donning a black, red-rimmed fedora and an old gray trench coat-- presumably lifted from the refuse of the Salvage Corp. dumpster-- he waits for action. For a mark. For business. He idly flicks ash off of his cigarette, draws a breath through the carcinogenic tube, and continues to speak.



"They were places of corruption, of crime, and of terror. They were to be avoided at all costs no matter how convenient they were for slicing time off our daily commutes to shops catering to our preferred vices. Of course, when I was a child, these streets were more overtly violent, so there was legitimate concern. These days they're not much better; the violence is just rearranged like a depressing shell game centered around tourist revenue under the guise of an urban renewal. "Nothing good ever happens in grungy alleyways," I always told myself that. Until one became my home, that is. He inhales yet another drag from his cigarette, the smoke blowing out through an invisible mouth. "Funny how things work out like that."



"How'd that happen, anyway?"



"Oh, you don't want to hear about that. It's a boring story. No, my life was never particularly interesting until I hit rock bottom. That's when this happened." He raises his free hand and looks up as the shadows seem to dissolve away to reveal a blank, featureless canvas save for a single black scar poking out from underneath his dark sunglasses. "I don't know how this works, it just does. It's great for business, but..." He removes his sunglasses, revealing yet another pair underneath. He wipes them clean, then tosses the shades to the side. As he does this, they seemingly fade from existence as they touch the dirty pavement. "It's quite difficult for personal relationships. As to how I got like this? I like to call it a wardrobe malfunction."



"That doesn't really explain anything. What's with the suit?" Totes looks off to the side at his companion.
"You really wanna know? It's pretty exposition-heavy and may take a while."
"It's not like I'm going anywhere."
"Fair enough. I found it in the dumpster." Totes flicks his cigarette butt at the wall, and starts searching for another cigarette in his coat.
"And then?"
"Then I started a traveling business finding and selling things to those in dire need, sometimes saving kittens from trees, stuff like that." Eying a suspiciously-placed piece of rubbish, he overturns it, revealing an old pack of smokes. "Ah, there we go." He grabs the pack and stands back up, leaning against the wall again.

"I meant, why's the suit stuck to you? Why's your face all white?" His companion is starting to get impatient; he could tell by the unamused stare he was getting. Totes drags a cigarette from the old, weathered pack. he puts it in his face where one would expect a mouth to be, pulling out a sleek lighter from seemingly nowhere. He lights the cigarette, and takes a puff.



"Alright," he says, closing the lighter and pocketing it, "First, I wanna say that I got all of this information second; third; twelfth-hand. I wasn't there for it, and this is just what I pieced together over the years, so I can't exactly speak to it's credibility. It starts with a children's show."

___________



Suddenly, the scene shifts--dark, wet, grungy. A long abandoned talk show studio set, vandalized and busted to pieces with nothing of consequence left, save for the terrifyingly stained furniture and the faint remains of what took place one fateful week. Remains even some among the dead would consider cause to board the nope-train to Nopesville.



"You know that old studio? The Detrago Public Access complex?" Totes looks at his companion, taking a drag before expelling rings into the air, waiting for an answer.



"Yeah; it closed down a decade ago. I heard it was closed down 'cause the building was deemed unsafe." his companion asked quizzically. Totes lets out a hollow, short-lived laugh. The scene fades to a clean set, an audience in the cheap, bleacher-style seats. A handsome-yet-generic, tall man with perfectly tousled hair wearing a dark pinstriped suit and a black, red-rimmed fedora is on stage.

"It was, but not structurally, no no. Some magician that went by the name Gilbert the Great used to have a children's show every day right around the time kids would be getting home at school. Part of his shtick was that he'd have a half-assed plotline throughout the week that typically played to some moral lesson. He made the mistake one season to try to speak out against the mob's corrupt practices. He figured, 'If the children learn to laugh at adversity, maybe the rest of the city will follow.', you know?" He takes another drag, then flicks the ash off his cig.

"Well, the local mob boss didn't take to kindly to his likeness being reduced to a caricature. So one day, dressed in his mobster getup, Gilbert walked up on stage, business as usual. As the story goes, partway through his act, the mob opted for a fairly public execution. They busted onto the set, forced him into a chair, and had his eye gouged out and forced down his throat. Remember how I said it was a live recording? It was also a live broadcast-- the boss wanted an example made of those that spoke up. He wanted people of all ages too scared to act out. Far as I know, they confiscated the footage after, since I haven't found any trace of it."



Denial, then shock, then panic washes over the crowd as the terrible act befell the man. Parents, children, and even his assistant run screaming-- those that aren't too paralyzed with fear. Gilbert's twitching body is left mangled, abandoned, still strapped to the chair. The scene ends, fully returning to the present alley in which we find our duo.

"From there, details are pretty sparse. All I know is rumors that the mob just left the body there, fully-clothed but defiled, rather than their usual disposal methods, and that some punk kids messing with occult rituals they found for shiggles cursed the body-- or at least his clothes. and I only know that because one of 'em came searching for the guy's hat looking for a keepsake a bit after, and only found me wearing the guy's clothes. Freaked him out a good bit, though I dunno why. It's just a cursed hat. and suit, apparently."

"That got dark hella fast."

"Yeah, well, that's this city for ya."

The view pans out, showing Tote's companion in all of their glory:

A porcelain cat, black, with yellow eyes, wrapped around a lamp post as if rubbing up against it for attention, the cat's gaze peering through tote's location into the black, empty void.

"Sooo... what else does the suit do, other than obscure your features?" Totes squeaks, poorly performing ventriloquy to himself. he flicks the but of his cigarette at the same brick as before, pulls out another cigarette and, flipping out his trusty lighter, chuckles.

"That's a whole other story. Gimme a sec to collect my thoughts. 'sides," He takes a long draw, and peers down the street, eying a desperate-looking balding man frantically looking down the alleyways as he passes them by, swiftly approaching Tote's location."I think I have a customer en route. I will say this though,"he turns to look at the porcelain cat, "Sometimes, great things happen in grungy alleyways."

Maya Is Fickle and Loves to Troll

So. That Catapult that I was working on? Not happening.

not for a lack of trying, however; I just can not dedicated any more time towards it. This is for two reasons:

1. Since the beginning of my work with Maya, I've had to deal with it either refusing to let me select/move items in wireframe 2d views, outright hiding major parts of my project from view in said perspectives, or opting to take away access to texture mapping with little to no explanation.

2. It set me way behind schedule on other work, and I know well enough to let things go. The completionist within is screaming at me, but I'd rather not be perpetually lagging behind.

I ws going to show example of Maya hding bits from view, but guess what else Maya has started to do?

It started to-- apparently-- start working fine for me. I don't know if it's doing so just because I  was trying to capture it's trolldom in all of it's glory, or f the systems I'm using have decided to start playing nice with one another. whatever the case may be, I think I may start seeing the light at the end of the poorly-rendered tunnel. With that said, I'll show you how far I got.

Oddly enough, I'm finding the lamp we're supposed to have finished soon is a bit easier for me to work on.

Maya Gets Handsy

So, I made a hand in Maya. It's nothing special, but I did learn quite a bit on the Extrude tool. Plus, it's the first time ever having to enter the 'Smooth' view. that being said, I'm just happy Maya decided it wanted to work with me again Though, it did hide the 'Modeling toolset' icon for about an hour and a half.

I swear, Maya is the first program where performing a Google search for the answer only turns up more questions. Questions such as "What if XXX isn't there?", "Am I missing a fundamental and basic step?", and "Why have you forsaken me, Internet?" I've determined there is a god in the machine, and that god is a huuuuuge troll.

That being said, it doesn't look half-bad considering the tutorial ends before it gets too crazy. It looks kinda like an inflated surgical glove. sort of.

Those knuckles, though.

What's My Superpower?

I always found it kinda funny how some superheroes are treated in terms of power disparity. They're largely kept on a relatively even playing field, and only popularity of the character-- or the current story arc-- determines how effective or ineffective their abilities are. Wolverine has a strong healing factor, an Adamantine skeleton, and retractable claws. These are very powerful, inhuman traits. I don't find him particularly interesting, however, because  death-- such as it is in comic books-- is never a risk for him.

I see wolverine as Marvel's Superman analog. Both of them are incredibly boring to me. Why? They both rely solely on their powers instead on ingenuity and out-of-the-box tactical thinking to solve problems. This is to be expected; neither of them really having to fear death leads people to focus on the more direct approach. While Superman's skin is literally strong enough to stop bullets, wolverine has bones which are nigh-impossible to break and a healing factor on top of that, keeping him largely immortal and healthy. There's no risk to their lives doing what they do. If put up against an incredibly cunning and intelligent antagonist, then they're interesting because they aren't able to play to their own strengths, making it easier for the reader to identify with them. I want to see The Riddle go up against Superman (I'm hopeful for the upcoming Batman Vs Superman film)  without anyone helping him. Superman's critical thinking skills aren't exactly the best, so playing to his weaknesses would make him much easier to handle as a protagonist. Wolverine Vs Dr. Doom, in theory, would also be interesting since no matter what happens, Dr. doom's plans are always advanced- whether he wins or loses. On their own though, they're both incredibly boring to me, and I kinda hate both characters as a whole. So, why the rant about them?

What super powers we'd choose, if able, can tell a lot about a person's personality. A person that's more interested in diversion and hit-and-run tactics would probably pick either Nightcrawler's Blink/teleportation abilities, or go with the Dazzler's ability to turn vibrations and sound into various forms of light, including lasers, while being immune to the effects of excessively bright lights and loud sounds. These are superpowers which are not directly or strictly useful in combat; Nightcrawler uses his teleportation as a means of transportation more than anything else, and the Dazzler primarily uses her abilities to create awesome light shows at her concerts. Green lanterns are by nature only as effective as their willpower and ability to think outside the box with their creations. On the flip side, the juggernaut is simply incredibly strong, and wears a helmet which specifically prevents psychic manipulation, and Wolverine can heal just about any damage that's incured on him without having to worry about breaking a nail. That sort of power set suits a person that either considers hit-and-run tactics as cowardly, or a personality that's very direct andprefers tackling challenges head-on. Of course, the individual's mental and physical capabilities also factor in when considering a super power.

See, as I write this wall of text which probably only one of you will bother reading to completion, I'm pondering what superpower I would have if only based on my current abilities-- strange things I've noticed I can sometimes do in my own mundane human existence. I'm also pondering what super powers I'd choose, if I could. So, what would my superpower be, if I had one?

I'd have to say Precognition. In general, I've found myself pretty apt at finding greater patterns in not just isolated circumstances, but in days, in people, and life as a whole. However-- and this is probably an extension of what I just said-- I also tend to have very strange dreams. See, I experience a sort of tonal dissonance in my dreams. That is, the mental visuals & audio do not match the feel the dream's feel to it. Imagine the best dream you've ever had, and then imagine the worst nightmare you'd ever had. That feeling that jolts you awake in a cold sweat, flipping out? That's the feeling I get when I dream about regular days. What happens is this: I'll dream of a regular day as if it's really going on, I'll wake up in a cold sweat, and then within the next couple of weeks to the next few months, that day will happen almost verbatim to what I dreamed. I never have any context to the events, however it still leaves me less likely to be surprised when things happen. Other times, I've had what some would consider creepy dreams which foretold an important event in another's life. for example, a month or so before I even knew the guy existed, I had a dream which told me the first name of the person a very close friend of mine would wind up marrying. That particular one still worries me. As an side: Does it could s cheating if you cheated off yourself in a dream? No? Okay. The only downsides are that I have to remember the dreams-- and I have a terrible memory-- and that I can't exactly control it consciously, so it's completely random whether it happens or not, and it's always when I'm asleep.

If I could choose, though? well, I'm not exactly one for being direct. If you saw my first post, you'd know that to be the case. additionally, I'm an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, and I tend to go for sneaky characters in whatever game I'm playing. Knowing that, I can see myself choosing the Dazzler's skillset, though I'd also need access to Tony Stark's technical abilities. I'd fashion a suit with speakers all over, making the entire form a giant Dubstep-powered weapon of deadly flashlights. I'd be incredibly weak physically, and heat-based opponents would be incredibly tricky for me to take down.

Another power I'd like would be the ability to manipulate the chemical balances of the people around me through my strength of will. It'd be incredibly useful for infiltrating enemy bases by making low-level goons like me enough to not mind letting me through, I'd be able to get free drinks at bars, and social engineer my way towards my ends. It'd also be incredibly easy to abuse, though: It'd also mean I could cut a person's dopamine or serotonin production or reception completely, which can make people go insane or get incredibly depressed, or even trick the body chemistry into an adrenaline-fueled rage, triggering the fight-or-flight response and generally causing a ruckus. It'd have to be maintained for the effects to not right themselves naturally over time, of course, but the amount of damage an individual can do would be incredibly easy and incredibly powerful. In a direct fight it would require a lot of concentration, and anyone properly shielded would be immune. I'd still probably lose to the Juggernaut.

Last power option would be to use my mitochondria to expel energy in ways which simulate magic, as is the case in the video game franchise Parasite Eve. Making others spontaneously combust or turn into goo is always interesting.

Maya Hates Clothes

When I took on this tutorial, things seemed pretty self-explanatory, at first. In fact, I currently understand what it is I'm supposed to do to get this decorative box to look like it does in the provided pictures. That being said, Maya has taken it upon itself to ignore my attempts to connect my hypershade textures to the flat planes. It wants the planes-- and the box itself-- to be naked and fly free.

When I was working on it in class originally, it worked perfectly fine with no errors. Sure, my flat planes were intersecting, but that was fixable. I opted to finish the boxes later, for I had other unrelated work to complete. I had Maya on my personal laptop, and I'd been saving all of my resources and projects on my external SSHD for consistency's sake. So, I loaded Maya up after completing the other project, and tried to work.

Then, the trolling began.

first, Maya decided that textures weren't even a thing. I know for a fact I'd been saving with each increment, and when I originally worked on the box, I was going along with the class, so I did have the textures loaded at one point. I hit the shortcut to switch to textured view, and nothing.They just weren't there anymore, but my box form was still there, it's flat planes naked and afraid. I felt for them, with their cold, shivering naked forms screaming out for someone, something to come and help cover their bare attributes I go to the book, and follow the steps exactly as I had previously done. I imported the three textures yet again, linking them to the proper corresponding Lambert renders, and then dragged them to the flat planes, expecting them to appear dressed and warm. I yearned to save them from their cold, bland existence.
 

But alas, Maya is a cold and harsh machine deity of Greek proportions. their cries and my actions fell upon the uncaring ears of a malevolent being. Despite all of my efforts, all of my searches and all my attempts to turn back the clock to earlier increments before things could have feasibly gone wrong were for naught.

I do not have the free time I wish I did; I don't think anybody does, honestly. so, I'll admit defeat on this one. What I learned here, though, is that there is a time when it's best to walk away, and that Maya will look for reasons to ruin your day.

Here's what it was supposed to look by the time the feet are extruded from the bottom of the basic box shape:

 

And here's what my box looks like. you can clearly see that I had already completed this step, and yet the textures are missing from the flat planes, despite recreating the hypershade work:

 

Clearly, Maya doesn't like me or my taste in textures.

Well, hopefully it will like me better when I create a hand and a catapult.

So I Did A Thing

It's not really anything special. I just created the solar system through a tutorial in Maya 2014.


Yes, that's Pluto in the corner.

This was my first time working with Maya, and it was an animation project to boot. Mind you, the .avi file seems to do... odd things on my laptop when using VLC to view the video:

 I like the effect the washed out color and scan-lines gave it, though-- Takes me back to playing SNES games using an old Commodore 64 monitor.But I digress.

Just like with any software I'm thrust into, I found myself slightly overwhelmed with the sheer volume of menus, options, and hotkeys. As if I were a child recently dunked into the deep end of the pool by the older kids at the family reunion, far from the merrily-drinking adults, I clung to the tutorial as I would a floating shark. It was my lifeline, my friend, and my guide.

It also said at one point that, if a particular action didn't work for me, that Maya doesn't like me. So, it was a bit sarcastic, which I like.

Once I was able to get a handle on the menu system-- finding the various buttons, menu screens, and whatnot- I found myself quickly speeding up in the production process. While Saturn took me about ten minutes to put its animations together properly, each other planet from then on took significantly less time. I think this is because, while overloaded with tools and options, Maya does one thing really well: they still manage to prevent the 'excessive button presses per action' problem of some interfaces. The ease- and speed- with which a program can be used by a person can often be loosely boiled down to the number of buttons-per-action. In this instance, Maya was able to be used quickly and effectively once I was used to the tools in question.

Overall, I found it pretty fun. Tedious, since I was animating a bunch of balls spinning on their access while spinning around other, larger balls, but still enjoyable. I look forward to our next dive into Maya.