#now that i'm in a good headspace my ocs all seem like unreasonably depressing little haters

[il3x]

so about that messy cauldron cape oc...

Current permutation is a boy who grows up as his family's golden child, the flipside being that his sister is scapegoated and emotionally abused. When he's 15-ish (and his sister is 13-14, probably? It works better if she's younger), she triggers with a Tinker or Thinker ability. An ability that's suddenly very useful to their parents, who have no problem exploiting her for money or fame. The boy doesn't see it this way; he just sees his family suddenly paying attention to his sister instead of him (he's still favoured, but more net time and energy goes to ~managing~ her). Why did his sister get powers, anyway? Weren't those meant to come to successful people in moments of grand triumph? She sure hasn't had many of those lately. So he Googles powers, or finds a library book. He's just curious. And, woah, there's a lot of theories. And no one knows for sure! It's kind of intriguing. He's always gotten hooked on interesting things pretty hard (one of his teachers mentioned ADHD, but he's always done great at school, so.) and he spends the weekend deep-diving. There's also a lot of claims on how to get powers. Probably bullshit. That's not really the cool part, anyway. Seriously, he doesn't know how nerds spend all their time on Cape Football when there could be alien demigods walking among us! Or angels heralding the Rapture! Or the keys to a completely new branch of Physics!  Well, um. Most likely that last one.  His powers interest ebbs a bit, and meanwhile, his sister is still being super important. Like, it should be illegal for one person to be that important. Her power is probably the only one ever that isn’t cool to look at and think about, just frustrating.  Those How To Get Powers blogs and forums keep popping up. Sue him, but he’s kinda curious. They’re probably so stupid they’re funny. Some of them are hilarious (he sends screenshots to his friends). Some of them, well, he’s gonna follow them (as an experiment, ironically) to prove just how fake they are. It can’t hurt to try.  They are fake, fake and stupid and frustrating, but they’re not exactly a waste of time because - did you know there are people who seriously believe you can get superpowers? Like, not just grifters and kids messing around at sleepovers? Adults with jobs who actually believe this shit. It’s kinda fascinating to observe them, the religious forums, the self-trigger nuts. And they’re so obscure, it’s exciting. He’s on a deep-cover mission. And, you know… these people, they’ve actually read the research, they document, they’re doing real cutting-edge shit. (Sometimes literally, hah. That Activation forum is insane.)  You know… they get it. He’s witnessed someone get powers firsthand, and they’re all really interested to hear his observations. He wishes he’d paid more attention to his sister before. She doesn’t really like questions now, and he doesn’t want to debase himself by begging her.  By now, he’s tried all the really harmless no-cost methods. No results, of course. After all, putting his sister’s case in the context of the literature, he is 100-percent sure that whatever latent mechanism gives you powers requires high emotion to activate. It unifies everything. Who knew, the self-harm junkies were probably closest of all?

He’s 16 and learning to drive when he plans his own activation. He’s not sure he could go through with it if he had to walk or jump into danger. A car, though, he could probably activate without trying, haha. The tricky bit is not actually killing himself before the powers kick in.  He succeeds! …Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have totalled it.  …Maybe he should have waited until he had his own car to total it.  And yeah, okay, he failed at activation. It’s kinda fucked. It’s kinda really fucked, actually, he didn’t think about the medical bill (he shouldn’t have even needed medical treatment!) or how much it might damage him (it shouldn’t have hurt) or his parents going off about the car (he should have had powers to show them, and then they would’ve forgotten everything else). Fuck, why’s he acting so entitled? He knew the risks. The painkillers must be getting to him. Well, he survived; and now… now he really has to get powers, somehow. He’s missing school, and his sports has gone out the window. It’s the only way left to win everyone back.  He gets creative with his activation attempts after that. It's easier with practice. He even tries the fringe alchemy forum’s latest ridiculous cocktail, with the mindset that it wouldn’t do shit for his “midichlorians” but would probably poison him really well. His parents think he’s trying to kill himself, and that somehow makes them madder. His sister… She knows. She clocks what he’s trying, and throws a fit about it, because God forbid someone actually works for a win instead of just crying about it. What does she know! She’s still trying to play the victim, with superpowers.  (He used to actually feel bad for her. To be honest - he sometimes still does, but she’s burning that goodwill fast.) He bombs his final exams, and stays in his parents’ house, and they ignore one another cordially, which is fine by him. More time for research. And research is actually useful again, because - well, because another stunt might use up the last of his own goodwill, and he’s honestly not sure he could get up the nerve for it, but that’s not all. He’s found a new lead, buried so professionally he’s not surprised that it took three years. “Cauldron”.