Application for route_29

[theotherother]

Player
Name: Steve
Personal Journal: chargingstar
E-mail: nephroblargh@gmail.com
AIM/Plurk/Etc.: opticblast
Timezone: MST
Current Characters in Route: Cobra Commander cobraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Character
Name: Kaine Parker
Series: Marvel Comics would probably be the best fit.
Timeline: After the rodeo issue!
Canon Resource Links: Kaine on Wikipedia! If you need more than this let me know!

Personality: Okay so, before talking about who Kaine is now, we need to talk a little about what he was like when he first appeared in the pages of Spider-Man. In some respects, Kaine at this point was pretty representative of the stuff that was going on in a lot of comics in the 1990s. He was the edgy, grimdark, and other applicable buzzwords clone of Spider-Man who went around killing people while wearing an all black outfit with his purple cape. And then the 90s ended for most people. But not for Kaine though, as he continued to be a brooding antisocial loner up until he got a second chance at being less of a representation of why 90s comics are mocked nowadays.

After dying, coming back as a weird spider monster (comics are weird), and then getting better, Kaine got a new lease on life. It was a new decade, pouches were out of style, and most importantly, he wasn't dying anymore. So with his borrowed Spider-Man suit he set out for Mexico...ended up stuck in Houston, where he was forced to be sociable and do all sorts of things he didn't want to do, and with this rough primer out of the way we can finally get into his personality.

So for starters, despite the whole Spider-Man clone thing, Kaine does not want to be a superhero. He does not want to save people. He does not want to fight supervillains, and he sure as hell doesn't want to be mistaken for Spider-Man. All he really wanted was to go to Mexico, be alone, and presumably drink while reminiscing about that time he had a beard and kept leaving Spider-Man's fingerprints on murder victims. Unfortunately for him, as pointed out earlier, life had other plans and Kaine has been forced into all sorts of superhero situations since then.

Unfortunately, he's an antisocial jerk, so he kind of sucks at the whole interacting with people thing. Which is sort of bad when one is doing superheroics. When he saves an elderly woman from being hit by a car, he doesn't let her thank him and instead yells at her for being too fucking old and too fucking slow to be crossing the street. When encountering a possible nuclear threat to the city of Houston, instead of trying to ease people's concerns, he yells about how now everyone's not just going to die, but they'll all get cancer too. When confronted by another team of heroes, he decides to handle the situation by throwing one of them out the window. When finding out the supervillain Carnage is on the loose in another dimension, his initial response is to say “Fuck that.” and try and leave.

Now over time, he's slightly mellowed out, but he still would prefer to be alone and lament about being a horrible monster than say, go hang out with friends or go to the rodeo. And yet somehow he ends up being forced to go out and god forbid, actually have fun. And when said things happen, he genuinely tries to have as little fun as possible because fun is not his idea of a good time. And yet somehow, despite his complaining about it, he actually manages to enjoy himself most of the time. He even has a sense of humor! It's not the greatest one in the world, and he's certainly not going to be quipping like Peter Parker anytime soon, but he can actually find humor in things, usually the ridiculous mess that his life has become.

Now I've poked a lot of fun at Kaine and his want to be left alone and dwell on his past, but the guy is carrying around quite a bit of baggage. He was originally created as a clone of Spider-Man, was rejected, and still has a lot of issues stemming from this. Basically, he's a failed Spider-Man. He knows this, and while in recent years, he's started to find his own identity, it still weighs on him pretty heavily. He's not Peter Parker, he's never going to be Peter Parker, and while he's aware of this, it's not exactly something he's completely accepted. At times, he still thinks of himself as a copy or a failure compared to the original. It doesn't help things either that this was basically drilled into his head repeatedly by the closest thing he had to a father.

Another source of his issues is another clone, Ben Reilly. Way back during the 90s, Ben was the original Scarlet Spider, and a man Kaine hounded out of a misguided belief that he had to cause Reilly suffering. Ben's been dead for a long time now, but Kaine's actions during that time and the fact that he's been labeled as the Scarlet Spider by seemingly everyone in Houston weigh on him from time to time.

And lastly, while he considers himself a monster for the things he's done in the past, there's also a much more recent reason for Kaine to think of himself as such. After being killed by werewolves (comics are weird), Kaine makes a deal with a mystical spider totem (See? Weird.) and is briefly resurrected in the form of a half human, half-spider monster. He returned to normal soon afterward, but the Other's still there, and he worries about what it might do to his newfound friends. So while he does tend to overdo it when compared to a number of other characters running around in the same world, his issues are far from unwarranted.

Strengths/Weaknesses: +Not So Great Responsibility:
As mentioned in the personality section, Kaine can be really reluctant about getting involved in things, but he's more or less a good person. He's not the type to ignore people in need no matter how much he gripes about it. It might take him a while to help out, but he'll do it. Eventually.

+Is He Strong, Listen Bud
Despite not being trained or having Spider-Man's Spider Sense, Kaine can definitely hold his own in a fight, even being able to go toe to toe with characters with tons of fighting experience (like Wolverine). Obviously, this isn't going to be as easy for him in Route due to the lack of powers, but he still probably wouldn't be a pushover.

+/- Can Talk To Spiders
Since the FAQ says people who can talk to animals can still do that, he'll be able to talk to spiders. This could probably go either way depending on what Spinaraks have to say.

+/- Not Spider-Man
Kaine's not Peter Parker. He handles things differently. Sometimes that works and the day is saved, and other times he lets everyone down and has to flee town. It's sort of a mixed bag.

+/- Impulsive
Kaine doesn't always think before he does things. This is the type of thing that leads to people getting thrown out of windows, and sometimes it leads to taking in the possibly reincarnated Aztec god of war. Like with the above section, there's no really middle ground here. It either works out great, or turns into a complete disaster.

+/- No Formal Education
Kaine didn't exactly have a normal upbringing and it certainly didn't involve much, if any formal schooling. He's not dumb by any means, but he's not exactly a genius either.

-Without Great Power Comes...?
Kaine's pretty used to doing whatever a spider can, so without that, he's going to be a bit lost. Adjusting to life without most of his powerset's going to take some time.

-Not So Friendly Neighborhood ...
Kaine's an abrasive jerk. He's not so bad once people get to know him, but given his foul mouth and attitude, that's easier said then done.

-Parker Luck
General rule of thumb is that Spider-Man or a clone of Spider-Man cannot have nice things. If something can go wrong for a Parker, odds are it will in a horrible fashion.

-The Clone Saga
As outlined in personality, he's a clone. He has issues with that. It is highly likely he's going to continue to have issues with that. The spider monster thing, not so much since it's a nonissue in Route, but the clone thing? That's still going to bother him.

-No Fun Allowed
Relatively self explanatory. Kaine has to pretty much be forced into taking part in activities that could be considered fun. In the Pokemon world, this means he could seriously miss out on stuff.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer with this outfit
Starter: Natu
Password: Swedish Fish

Samples
First Person Sample:
[Video]

[Okay, he's pretty sure this thing's on, but he's not talking yet, just sort of staring past it at the house behind him. He's still not sure what's up with that. But since staring at Mom's House isn't solving that issue, he'll turn back towards the camera, looking very confused. Also irritated. Very irritated.]

Two questions: Where the hell's my stuff? And where's the bus station so I can take the next bus back to Houston?

[Please let there be a bus station. Please don't let this be some crazy interdimensional thing he's caught up in.]

Three, I guess. Is there some place I can drop this bird off?

[As to what bird it is, the camera doesn't show it because Kaine's not...showing everyone the weird bird he got. That makes it seem too real.]

It's following me around, I don't want a pet, and I'm getting my ass out of here as soon as I find out how, so if somebody could come get it, or there's a shelter I can leave it at, that'd be great.

[He goes to stop the feed, but reconsiders.]

Okay, four. Anyone out there seen a girl named Aracely? She might be wearing some...some weird ass green thing. You'll know it if you see it. If you have, let me know.

Third Person Sample:
So it was in fact, some weird ass intedimensional thing. Which is just great. Just great, Kaine thought as he set out from New Bark Town, hopefully towards a way out of this crazy place.

“Just fucking great,” he grumbled out loud...to himself. “Now I'm talking to myself. I get sent across time and space to this place, I'm hiking through the grass since there's no cars, and now I'm talking to myself. Can this get any worse?”

Seriously. He thought being a clone somehow excluded him from these sorts of things. Like what, was Parker busy so Kaine got sent here instead? Or did he get sent here because he's the clone and the real thing was too good for this place? He stopped in his tracks, thinking this one over, but was quickly brought out of it by a sharp peck to his leg

“Ow, what the-”

Ugh, it's that stupid bird again. It'd been following him ever since he left that house. Apparently it was his Pokemon or something, but the hell if he was going to go along with that shit. He stared blankly at it while it hopped up and down before running into the grass. ...the tall grass. Which the bird completely disappeared into.

Okay. It's just some grass. It'll be fine. He'll just leave it here and keep walking. No problem. He's not going to run into the grass just because the grass stopped moving. Nope. He'll just...okay, just this once he's going to run in there and make sure it's okay.

And trigger a wild Pokemon battle with a wild Sentret once he found his Natu.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

He just put his face in his hands as the music changed. He wasn't sure what else he could do besides that at this point. It was all just so...so...so stupid.

“You know what? I give up,” he said, not really addressing Natu, Sentret or anything else in particular. “I fucking give up, I'm not dealing with this, and I'm leaving. Come here.”

He walked over towards Natu, grabbed it, and stomped off, completely unaware that he just fled from his first ever Pokemon battle. He hates this place, pretty much everything in it, and he's done with all of this. And it hasn't even been a full day yet.