Hiro Hamada (浜田飛呂) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
microbrobotics) wrote2015-01-02 06:57 pm
microbrobotics) wrote2015-01-02 06:57 pm
[OOC] MoM App In Progress!
〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Rho
AGE: 29
JOURNAL: galatea @ DW (though I don’t really use it)
IM / EMAIL: ishidaaaugh @ gmail
PLURK: katoptron
RETURNING: Nope, completely new! I did play in Cape and Cowl back in the day, though.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Hiro Hamada
CHARACTER AGE: 14
SERIES: Big Hero 6 (Disney movie)
CHRONOLOGY: End of current canon (movie + minor supplementary canon from tie-in media)
CLASS: Hero… mostly. Hiro absolutely means well, but he’s also fourteen and not always good at thinking through the consequences of his decisions. He will probably be involved in something going hilariously wrong at some point during the game.
HOUSING: I’m perfectly fine with Hiro being housed with other people, although ICly he is probably going to ditch at the earliest opportunity. There is no way he’s going to put up with normal high school classes (or even non tech school classes) sooooo CPS harassing him is gonna be a recurring thing.
BACKGROUND: Warning for MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS in both of these sections.
In an alternate universe, San Francisco has been replaced by San Fransokyo, a thriving and bilingual high-tech metropolis. Talented engineers made rocket boots, force fields, portable chem labs, all kind of things. Enter the Hamada brothers: a pair of exceptionally bright young roboticists in a city already full of geniuses. Hiro in particular proved to be a prodigy at a young age when he solved a difficult math theorem on his brother Tadashi’s homework before he even entered preschool. However, being so darn smart came with the usual drawbacks: bullying by his peers, complete disengagement at school, and deeply antisocial tendencies. So despite their age gap, Hiro and Tadashi were best friends - and for Hiro, his older brother was his only friend.
The two of them were inseparable for most of their childhood. They built advanced (and hilariously dangerous) science projects together, from retrofitting a grocery cart with rockets to making repulsor boots for their aunt’s cat. When Tadashi hit college age, however, Hiro suddenly found himself having to compete with school for his brother’s attention. So while Tadashi worked fervently on perfecting a healthcare companion bot for school, Hiro started ignoring his classes to scam the local bot-fighting rings. Participating wasn’t illegal, but betting on them sure was - and Hiro’s fondness for doing stupid yet awesome stuff meant that of course he was betting on his own fights at any available opportunity. It also meant that he kept getting caught and thrown in jail. Oops.
After enough of these ill-fated encounters, Tadashi decided that it was time to get his brother to stop messing around and actually start being a productive member of society. He took Hiro to the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology - his college - and not-so-subtly introduced him to all the amazing projects going on. The crown jewel was Tadashi’s own project: Baymax, a healthcare companion robot with a soft, huggable exterior. Hiro’s jealousy towards the school quickly shifted into awe, then a burning need to develop a project that would convince the school to let him attend early. Not only would he get to make all this cool stuff in an actual science lab, he’d also get to work with his brother again. The choice was easy to make.
He abandoned his bot-fighting to work feverishly on his project. Progress was rocky, especially at first, but whenever he got stuck, Tadashi was there to help him think of another angle. Tadashi’s nerd friends showed up to help too, so by the time he actually finished his work, he’d started making friends with them as well. The result: about twelve recycling bins filled with tiny 2 inch long microbots. While not impressive on their own, Hiro also built a neural transmitter that tapped into their programing and allowed them to move in sync with each other. Anyone wearing the band could make the robots form any shape imaginable - like a real life Green Lantern ring. Professor Callaghan, Tadashi’s mentor, was suitably impressed by the invention and offered him the scholarship that Hiro had wanted. However, there was also a rival bidder for Hiro’s inventions: Alistair Krei. He offered to purchase Hiro’s microbots instead. Callaghan vehemently opposed this offer, citing Krei’s tendencies to cut corners at the expense of everyone involved. Still, if Hiro had still been involved in his bot-fighting rings he might have taken the money. But Tadashi’s good influence had already started working, so instead he accepted Callaghan’s scholarship.
Hiro’s joy did not last long. As he and Tadashi’s friends left to go celebrate Hiro’s scholarship, fire alarms went off in the exhibition hall behind them. Tadashi, realizing that his mentor Callaghan was still inside the burning building, dashed back inside. Just as Hiro turned to try and go after him, the building exploded - this time sending most of the ceiling crashing down on anyone inside. Including Tadashi. Unconscious and dealing with minor smoke inhalation himself, Hiro was unable to do anything to save him. The brother he loved more than anything in the world, that he’d joined SFIT just to work on more projects with … suddenly he was gone. The loss utterly destroyed Hiro. He stopped eating, stopped working, stopped doing anything. He didn’t even bother to sign up for classes at SFIT. Why bother when his brother wasn’t there any more?
He might have stayed that way for some time if he hadn’t stubbed his toe. Well, stubbed his toe with his brother’s healthcare robot in the room. Hiro had completely forgotten Baymax’s existence until the robot reinflated itself and came over to attend to Hiro’s “injury.” Hiro initially turned down Baymax’s help, not wanting anything to do with Tadashi’s legacy. But while struggling to get the bot to deactivate and go back to its charging cradle, Hiro accidentally discovered that the one remaining microbot in his possession was trying to move in a particular direction, as if it were trying to join its microbrethren. That should have been impossible - the rest of the ‘bots had been destroyed with the rest of the exhibition hall and Hiro had made no move to rebuild them since. Hiro ignored the bot as being malfunctioning, but Baymax picked it up and began to follow the ‘bot to the source of its agitation.
Hiro found himself chasing after the wayward healthcare robot. By the time he caught up, however, they were in an abandoned warehouse filled with machines making thousands more of his microbots. Someone had stolen his design for their own purposes. And worse, the culprit was still there, wearing a mask with Hiro’s neural transmitter imbedded into it. He used the microbots to try and kill Hiro - and with all the new ones he’d made, there was a literal wave of them that he could use to try and drown Hiro with. He and Baymax barely escaped from the factory with their lives.
Naturally, the next step was to try and take this to the police … who promptly dismissed the ramblings of a fourteen-year-old kid claiming that some dude in a kabuki mask tried to kill him with ESP. (And robots. ESP-controlled robots.) Hiro returned home to get Baymax fixed up and charged. While discussing his brother with the bot, Hiro realized something important: the man in the mask had to be the one responsible for the fire … and his brother’s death. How else would he have access to Hiro’s microbots? Now there was no choice but to take this matter into his own hands. He built 3D printed armor to cover up Baymax’s squishy body, programmed karate moves and overrode Tadashi’s non-violent programming. More importantly, he actually began bonding with Baymax, beginning to see him as a friend and companion rather than just this annoying thing following him around.
Newly outfitted, the duo set out to deal with the masked man for once and for all … and then promptly failed again. Baymax, concerned for Hiro’s mental health, called for his friends in the middle of their investigation. And while that turned out to be a good thing due to their imminent need for a rescue … it also attracted the masked man to their location in the first place. Oops. One exciting chase scene later, Hiro came to the realization that he couldn’t take on the masked man alone. Baymax managed to get a scan of the masked man’s vitals, so if Hiro could upgrade him enough to do a city-wide sweep, they’d be able to find him again. The trick would be what to do after that. So Hiro formed Big Hero 6 for the very first time: weaponizing each of the group’s science projects (the same ones he was awestruck by during his initial visit to SFIT with Tadashi) and building them armor to take advantage of them. For himself, he made an upgrade for Baymax with wings, thrusters, and a rocket punch. His own suit was much humbler - just extra protection with strong electromagnets to keep himself attached to Baymax’s back.
Upgrades complete, Hiro took Baymax out on a test flight. Though not exactly a smooth ride, it was an exciting one - and most importantly, Baymax was able to get a lock on the masked man using its upgraded sensors. The team tracked him down to a remote island out in the bay. It was clearly an abandoned laboratory of some sort. Inside, they discovered the remains of an experimental portal device - and security footage showing the device in action. A single pilot went into the portal device and to the in-between space beyond, planning to emerge from the other side. However … the technology malfunctioned and began destroying the portals, thus stranding her. The team quickly realized that Alistair Krei built the tech and must have been using the microbots to try and rebuild his failed experiment.
Or - at least that’s what they thought until the masked man showed up to attack them once again. This time, the team was prepared enough to put up a good fight. During the struggle, they managed to get his mask off, exposing the villain as being … Callaghan? Hiro was shocked and enraged by this revelation, especially when his accusations on Callaghan’s complicity in Tadashi’s death fell on deaf ears. Overwhelmed with anger and grief, Hiro ordered Baymax to kill Callaghan; however, the robot refused, claiming that Tadashi’s original programming did not permit him to go through with such an act. The rest of the team was equally shocked by Hiro’s murderous impulses. But Hiro couldn’t listen to reason with his brother’s murderer standing in front of him. He removed Tadashi’s programming completely, leaving only the additional programming that he himself had put into Baymax. The ‘bot responded by going on a wild rampage. Only after one of the team members managed to slide Tadashi’s pacifistic programming card back into Baymax’s slot did the robot finally stop. Unfortunately, Callaghan managed to escape during the confusion. The team was also angry with Hiro, saying that they never agreed to murder, only justice. Furious and heartbroken, Hiro sped off on Baymax and left his would-be teammates behind in the abandoned laboratory.
Hiro immediately tried to remove Tadashi’s programming chip from Baymax once again. If he had to kill Callaghan by himself, then so be it - he was too broken by grief to see past his own pain. But Baymax refused to release the chip to Hiro. True to his healthcare programming, he asked Hiro if killing Callaghan would truly bring him peace. Hiro thought about that question … and then broke down sobbing. Maybe Callaghan deserved death, but no matter what, killing the man responsible for his brother’s death would never bring Tadashi back. It seemed like there was no way out of this situation he’d gotten himself stuck in. Then Baymax pulled up several video logs from his creation: Tadashi working on Baymax. Tadashi getting smacked around by Baymax’s faulty programming. Tadashi eventually achieving success. Tadashi talking about all the good Baymax would do and all the people he could help. In that moment, Hiro realized that his brother’s legacy couldn’t be more violence and hate. He had to carry on his brother’s mission of helping people - of bringing Callaghan to justice and saving Krei (the object of Callaghan’s rampage) from the microbot swarm. The rest of the team showed up too, having been airlifted out by one of the teammate’s helicopters. Ultimately they forgave Hiro for being upset and almost kinda murdering a man.
And so the team found themselves racing over to Krei Laboratories to stop Callaghan once and for all. By then, Callaghan had already used Hiro’s microbots to reassemble one of Krei’s portal prototypes. He held it over Krei’s brand new lab, using it to pull the lab apart brick by brick and suck it into the unstable portal. And then finally, once Krei got to watch all of his hard work erased, Callaghan would feed Krei into the portal as well. Fortunately for him, though, Hiro and his team showed up to fight Callaghan. The team couldn’t get Callaghan’s mask off (and thus disable the neural transmitter), but they could destroy microbots until Callaghan ran out. So each of them used their new gear to destroy as much as they could while Hiro looked for ways to shut down the portal. While scanning it, however, Baymax found signs of life on the other side: the missing pilot (and Callaghan’s daughter). Hiro and Baymax charged in to save her.
The three of them almost made it back intact … until a stray chunk of building from the laboratory collided with Baymax, disabling his thrusters and destroying most of his armor. The only item remaining was his rocket punch. While Baymax could certainly use that to give Hiro and the pilot enough momentum to get back out of the portal, that would require it to sacrifice itself, as the blast would send the rest of Baymax’s body careening into the void. Hiro was heartbroken - this robot was the last remaining piece of his brother, for whom he had come to care very deeply. But there was nothing else to be done. He and the pilot escaped from the other side of the portal just as it closed, leaving Baymax to be lost forever. Callaghan was brought to justice but got his daughter back - and Hiro was, once again, alone.
Still, the kid perked up somewhat after that. Bringing Callaghan to justice helped bring him some peace, even if Baymax was now gone. He was back in touch with his friends as well. He began to attend classes at SFIT, started returning to some level of normalcy without his brother. But it still wasn’t quite enough. So when he later discovered that the rocket fist Baymax had used to push him out (and thus came with them) still held the chip with Tadashi’s programming, Hiro was overjoyed. He used the chip to rebuild Baymax from the ground up. Every detail identical to the bot that his brother had made. And with the chip in place, Baymax was still there - it was only his body that had temporarily been destroyed.
Together with Baymax and the rest of his friends, Hiro and the rest of Big Hero 6 continue to handle super villain threats as they show up in San Fransokyo. And while Hiro’s mental recovery is still slow, he is working on it. The crime fighting helps a lot. His friends and Baymax help a lot more.
PERSONALITY:
Hiro is a kid defined by passion. Both in how he acts when it’s on but also the glaring gap left when he doesn’t have anything to be passionate about. Everything else traces back to this core attribute, for good or for ill. In his natural state, Hiro approaches the world with an explosive level of energy: great when he’s focused, just kind of all over the place when not. Either he’s invested and obsessed or he’s completely detached - rarely anything in between. He functions best when he’s got some kind of outside reason for him to focus his attention. The kid’s still fourteen after all: he hasn’t quite mastered the art of working through the boring parts of a project unless he knows there’s a damn good reason for him to finish it. Tadashi served as that focus all through Hiro’s childhood; when they grew apart with Tadashi’s enrollment at SFIT, Hiro drifted into pursuits that had more immediate (if dangerous) rewards, like the bot fighting rings. This is also why Tadashi’s death and Hiro’s subsequent depression was so damn hard to work through: with no indication that anything would ever be better again, Hiro just didn’t have the energy to even try. In a way, Callaghan’s revenge plan was an incredible boon for Hiro: it gave him enough of a focus for him to actually apply his massive intellect and helped push him towards living a full life again.
Except for that whole part about Hiro almost being consumed by his grief and killing a dude. Oops. That’s the other downside of being someone as driven by his emotions as Hiro is. Positive ones can drive him to be a loyal friend, a stalwart ally and an inventor who can do a world of good with his genius. Negative one can unravel all of that in a heartbeat. Tadashi’s death resulted in some very dark obsessions taking over even after Callaghan’s plot got him moving again. If Baymax hadn’t kept videos of Tadashi creating him (and shown them to Hiro at his lowest point), then Hiro might have completely lost himself in his desire for revenge. Instead, he made a decision to do what his brother would have wanted: to help as many people as possible. Carrying that out has mostly gone well in practice.
Hiro Hamada might be an incredible engineering genius super hero, but he’s alsooo kind of a giant brat. Even with the maturation he’s gone through in his movie, he’s still a fourteen year old kid with way too much brainpower. His social skills are somewhat underdeveloped due to his long history of only having his brother for a friend. Sure, he can run a scam just fine, but when it comes to genuine interactions he gets shy. Much better to bond over saving the city from a super villain and figure out the social stuff later. He’s still better at making friends with robots than he is with people, though. Even so, Hiro is a person who functions better around other entities in their life, mechanical or otherwise. The loss of his friends (and being unable to bring Baymax with him) will push back his development somewhat. Conversely, seeing all the amazing tech people have to offer will push him back out of his shell. Hiro will be both wary of and vulnerable to the game community at large. It’ll all depend on who he runs into. (He’ll be deeply biased towards nerdy and/or awesome people.)
When he’s in his element, Hiro is quite prideful and cocky. He shows absolutely no hesitation in wanting to attend SFIT once he’s convinced that it’s awesome - and the same goes for everything else in his life. He’s also extremely aware of his own brilliance and more than a bit arrogant about it. Not to a fault, really - it doesn’t interfere with him making friends - but he absolutely does not tolerate people who just see a kid when they look at him. (Unless he’s deliberately playing off that expectation, but then he’s not trying to actually be friends with them). As long as people are willing to look past his age, though, he can be perfectly friendly. And he does manage to lead the team well in the moment even if he’s not real great at thinking in the long term just yet.
Selflessness is also something he hasn’t entirely gotten the hang of yet. In the context of superheroing, yes, absolutely - he’ll risk himself to protect someone else any day of the week. In terms of what he needs to get that far though … that could be rough. Hiro did start off doing things that were lucrative but very very illegal - and he’ll likely fall back into that at first when he arrives in the game. Petty theft and scamming, that kind of thing. He’s a practical guy, after all. Not to mention that being without his safety net will knock his development a few steps, something the whole Registered/Unsettled dichotomy really won’t help. He never had much trust in the police or authority figures to begin with given how badly both have failed him in canon. And if they keep calling CPS on him or turn him down on based on his age, you’d better believe he’ll be Unsettled before you can turn around. He’s still got a good foundation in the maturation he achieved post Tadashi’s death, but he’s also sensitive to loss. All this means that he’ll be tilted a little bit towards his pragmatic/excitable side than his mature side - especially since he’ll need to get the resources he needs to actually get started. One way or another. What’s a little petty thievery in the name of saving the world?
POWER:
Engineering Prodigy (Canon): One of Hiro’s defining traits is his massive genius-level intellect. (At least when it comes to STEM topics - the liberal arts are definitely not his thing.) The kid started doing his brother’s math homework at age 3, began designing robots and engineering projects with his brother shortly afterwards, and graduated from high school at thirteen. Not to mention all the stuff he’s done in the movie itself: neurally controlled microbots, powered armor for himself and his friends, weaponizing his friends’ science projects, rebuilding Baymax from scratch, etc. etc. He’s still young, so he doesn’t have as much experience, but in terms of sheer intelligence he can go toe to to with pretty much anyone else. He specializes in finding practical applications for otherwise theoretical concepts - it’s no fun unless he can actually build something with it. So he’ll be using his smarts to build all kinds of things once he’s in the game. Primary limitations will be money and equipment, although given he did all of the above working out of his garage, it won’t be that prohibitive of a barrier. He just needs a boost to get started.
Technokinesis (New): Hiro has the ability to move mechanical objects using only his mind. As long as there’s a servo, joint, or engine somewhere in the thing, he can start it moving without even having to touch it. This also comes with an extremely limited touch of cyberpathy - if a machine already has a particular kind of functionality, he can tell it to start that action (like starting a car without having to manually move every piece of machinery involved in ignition). It will also allow him to make his microbots move and form shapes without him needing a neural transmitter. However, this does not bestow any hacking abilities on him whatsoever, nor any advantages when it comes to programming. This is a hardware-only ability - no software. He could convince an ATM to spit out cash but not put anything into his account.
The ability also gives him a limited awareness of applicable machinery in his area - a buzzing-like sensation in the back of his head that gets louder if he listens in too much or too long. Great for knowing what he can and can’t affect, bad for prolonged use of his abilities. Or really being around machinery at all until he gets control over his new power. Kid’s going to have a lot of headaches while he practices. Note that this is the only additional “sense” he gets from using this power - everything else he has to rely on his normal ones. So he can’t send a bot with a camera on ahead to scout and get the info routed directly into his mind or something. He can “hear” where it is and gets a jolt of pain if it’s destroyed under his control, but he can’t see where it’s going. This also gives him a practical limit of only really being effective with his technokinesis if he can see what he’s doing. He also cannot directly input complex instructions into a computer system without having an input system to physically manipulate.
Hiro has a max radial range of about 5 meters (15 feet). That’s the max under perfect conditions - no blocked line of sight, nothing between him and the target except air or vacuum. The thicker the barrier in his way, the more his range shrinks. It gets down to a couple feet when he’s trying to reach through lead or titanium. Effectiveness also depends on the condition of the mechanisms he’s manipulating - he’s not going to force something with a weak servo to pry itself out of concrete. Or make a car engine jump out of a car for that matter. The more he works with the tech he’s moving, the easier and more effective his power usage will be. He also has a limited pool of energy available at any given time, with size, complexity and familiarity being key factors in how quickly he drains it. Velocity too - if he wants something move quickly, he can only do a few at once, and vice versa. A swarm of microbots designed to link up with each other and be moved by his powers? Doable. A swarm of random servos that he’s never seen before? He’ll get a quick burst of activity before collapsing under the strain. Also, anything controlled by a PC or an important NPC (like, say, the portal devices) will be highly resistant/immune, depending on the situation at hand. They’ll fall under the “too complex” rule. If necessary, a permissions post will be put up to handle this; however, I anticipate that it’ll be simpler and easier to work directly with the players involved if it comes up in game.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
Using his thread from the test drive meme here: http://etcelsior.dreamwidth.org/14039.html?thread=8172759#cmt8172759 Mostly 1st person action with a minor amount of prose.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
It all happened so quickly that Hiro barely had a chance to react. First the flash of light interrupting his late night lab session, then all this information getting shoved at him by vaguely ominous and completely untrustworthy authority figures. He’d never been a fan of the police anyway, so he was way less inclined to trust ones that apparently had a thing for kidnapping superheroes. Or at least, that sure was what Hiro had gotten out of it. And Hiro, according to very good sources (himself), was rarely wrong.
They let him go outside of some new housing where he was supposed to live. Their mistake. The moment the escort soldier turned her back, Hiro slipped down an alleyway and made himself scarce.
He found his way to a small café not far from the housing development he’d just left. Dodging past a friendly waitress, he slipped into a booth near the back where hopefully he wouldn’t be noticed. Time for a game plan. He emptied everything he owned out on the table: a few crumpled bills, a stylus (now stolen from the SFIT lab, oops), a folded piece of paper with some notes on it, and … Wait, hold on. He’d set his cell phone on a shelf in his lab when he’d started in on the really detailed actuator machining. So what was this device in his pocket?
Hiro laid it out on the table with the others. It looked like a cell phone, but it seemed to be emitting a high-pitched whine that Hiro didn’t entirely like. Tentatively, he reached out to start tapping buttons. The first thing it pulled up was some kind of network - garbage, the thing wanted him to post with his real name attached, like some idiot who just stumbled onto the internet yesterday - but after some fiddling, he got it to pull up what looked like an ordinary phone menu. So far, so good. He’d call the lab first; training Baymax to pick up phones had been both hilarious and useful, since the bot’s canned responses tended to scare off any callers who didn’t know Hiro already.
The phone beeped questioningly in response: “The number you have dialed is out of service and cannot be reached.”
“What?” he said. Fingers danced over the phone again as he tried to get it to work. “No, no no, come on…” A very real chill of fear went through him. Had something happened to Baymax? No, the bot was probably just clumsy. He must have knocked the darn thing over while trying to pick it up. Lovably squishy but terrible at anything requiring fine hand-eye coordination, that was Baymax.
He forced himself to take a deep breath. If he couldn’t get his own cell phone to work, then he had to try his friends. He dialed Honey Lemon’s first - she’d be the one least likely to yell at him for getting himself stranded in Florida. The same error message. The same for the others. Even Fred, who he thought for sure would get some kind of message … nada. That initial chill quickly became a solid ice lump in the pit of his stomach. By the time he tried Aunt Cass’ number, he knew what the response would be: nothing at all. No indication at all that any of them were out there.
His breath came out in one long trembling huff. Suddenly, he found himself wiping at his eyes, trying to ignore the sudden blurring of tears. He was utterly and completely alone. Not even Baymax waddling beside him this time. The thought of it made his body feel numb, like maybe if he just closed his eyes he’d wake up safe in his bed again. He liked adventure - loved it, even - but he’d never been this far away from everyone he’d ever known before. Even during the worst depths of his depression, he’d had Tadashi’s friends available even if he didn’t want to talk to them. Maybe he really was in a different universe like the Porter officials had said. The thought should have excited him…
“Are you all right?”
Hiro jolted up. The waitress from the restaurant was standing over him. Blinking hard, he scooped the rest of his possessions back into his hoodie pockets. “Y-yeah,” he said. “I’m just - “ He blanked for a moment, struggling to find a good lie. “My parents were gonna meet me here, but they changed their mind. Different restaurant.” Before she could object, Hiro slid out of the booth and bolted for the door.
New plan: find a way back to San Fransokyo the hard way. Or … if this multiple universe thing really did turn out to be true … Well, then he’d have to find a different way to cope.
FINAL NOTES:
Fun fact! The Disney version of Big Hero 6 is actually part of the Marvel multiverse with its own universe number: Earth-TRN441. It is distinct from the current MCU.
NAME: Rho
AGE: 29
JOURNAL: galatea @ DW (though I don’t really use it)
IM / EMAIL: ishidaaaugh @ gmail
PLURK: katoptron
RETURNING: Nope, completely new! I did play in Cape and Cowl back in the day, though.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Hiro Hamada
CHARACTER AGE: 14
SERIES: Big Hero 6 (Disney movie)
CHRONOLOGY: End of current canon (movie + minor supplementary canon from tie-in media)
CLASS: Hero… mostly. Hiro absolutely means well, but he’s also fourteen and not always good at thinking through the consequences of his decisions. He will probably be involved in something going hilariously wrong at some point during the game.
HOUSING: I’m perfectly fine with Hiro being housed with other people, although ICly he is probably going to ditch at the earliest opportunity. There is no way he’s going to put up with normal high school classes (or even non tech school classes) sooooo CPS harassing him is gonna be a recurring thing.
BACKGROUND: Warning for MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS in both of these sections.
In an alternate universe, San Francisco has been replaced by San Fransokyo, a thriving and bilingual high-tech metropolis. Talented engineers made rocket boots, force fields, portable chem labs, all kind of things. Enter the Hamada brothers: a pair of exceptionally bright young roboticists in a city already full of geniuses. Hiro in particular proved to be a prodigy at a young age when he solved a difficult math theorem on his brother Tadashi’s homework before he even entered preschool. However, being so darn smart came with the usual drawbacks: bullying by his peers, complete disengagement at school, and deeply antisocial tendencies. So despite their age gap, Hiro and Tadashi were best friends - and for Hiro, his older brother was his only friend.
The two of them were inseparable for most of their childhood. They built advanced (and hilariously dangerous) science projects together, from retrofitting a grocery cart with rockets to making repulsor boots for their aunt’s cat. When Tadashi hit college age, however, Hiro suddenly found himself having to compete with school for his brother’s attention. So while Tadashi worked fervently on perfecting a healthcare companion bot for school, Hiro started ignoring his classes to scam the local bot-fighting rings. Participating wasn’t illegal, but betting on them sure was - and Hiro’s fondness for doing stupid yet awesome stuff meant that of course he was betting on his own fights at any available opportunity. It also meant that he kept getting caught and thrown in jail. Oops.
After enough of these ill-fated encounters, Tadashi decided that it was time to get his brother to stop messing around and actually start being a productive member of society. He took Hiro to the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology - his college - and not-so-subtly introduced him to all the amazing projects going on. The crown jewel was Tadashi’s own project: Baymax, a healthcare companion robot with a soft, huggable exterior. Hiro’s jealousy towards the school quickly shifted into awe, then a burning need to develop a project that would convince the school to let him attend early. Not only would he get to make all this cool stuff in an actual science lab, he’d also get to work with his brother again. The choice was easy to make.
He abandoned his bot-fighting to work feverishly on his project. Progress was rocky, especially at first, but whenever he got stuck, Tadashi was there to help him think of another angle. Tadashi’s nerd friends showed up to help too, so by the time he actually finished his work, he’d started making friends with them as well. The result: about twelve recycling bins filled with tiny 2 inch long microbots. While not impressive on their own, Hiro also built a neural transmitter that tapped into their programing and allowed them to move in sync with each other. Anyone wearing the band could make the robots form any shape imaginable - like a real life Green Lantern ring. Professor Callaghan, Tadashi’s mentor, was suitably impressed by the invention and offered him the scholarship that Hiro had wanted. However, there was also a rival bidder for Hiro’s inventions: Alistair Krei. He offered to purchase Hiro’s microbots instead. Callaghan vehemently opposed this offer, citing Krei’s tendencies to cut corners at the expense of everyone involved. Still, if Hiro had still been involved in his bot-fighting rings he might have taken the money. But Tadashi’s good influence had already started working, so instead he accepted Callaghan’s scholarship.
Hiro’s joy did not last long. As he and Tadashi’s friends left to go celebrate Hiro’s scholarship, fire alarms went off in the exhibition hall behind them. Tadashi, realizing that his mentor Callaghan was still inside the burning building, dashed back inside. Just as Hiro turned to try and go after him, the building exploded - this time sending most of the ceiling crashing down on anyone inside. Including Tadashi. Unconscious and dealing with minor smoke inhalation himself, Hiro was unable to do anything to save him. The brother he loved more than anything in the world, that he’d joined SFIT just to work on more projects with … suddenly he was gone. The loss utterly destroyed Hiro. He stopped eating, stopped working, stopped doing anything. He didn’t even bother to sign up for classes at SFIT. Why bother when his brother wasn’t there any more?
He might have stayed that way for some time if he hadn’t stubbed his toe. Well, stubbed his toe with his brother’s healthcare robot in the room. Hiro had completely forgotten Baymax’s existence until the robot reinflated itself and came over to attend to Hiro’s “injury.” Hiro initially turned down Baymax’s help, not wanting anything to do with Tadashi’s legacy. But while struggling to get the bot to deactivate and go back to its charging cradle, Hiro accidentally discovered that the one remaining microbot in his possession was trying to move in a particular direction, as if it were trying to join its microbrethren. That should have been impossible - the rest of the ‘bots had been destroyed with the rest of the exhibition hall and Hiro had made no move to rebuild them since. Hiro ignored the bot as being malfunctioning, but Baymax picked it up and began to follow the ‘bot to the source of its agitation.
Hiro found himself chasing after the wayward healthcare robot. By the time he caught up, however, they were in an abandoned warehouse filled with machines making thousands more of his microbots. Someone had stolen his design for their own purposes. And worse, the culprit was still there, wearing a mask with Hiro’s neural transmitter imbedded into it. He used the microbots to try and kill Hiro - and with all the new ones he’d made, there was a literal wave of them that he could use to try and drown Hiro with. He and Baymax barely escaped from the factory with their lives.
Naturally, the next step was to try and take this to the police … who promptly dismissed the ramblings of a fourteen-year-old kid claiming that some dude in a kabuki mask tried to kill him with ESP. (And robots. ESP-controlled robots.) Hiro returned home to get Baymax fixed up and charged. While discussing his brother with the bot, Hiro realized something important: the man in the mask had to be the one responsible for the fire … and his brother’s death. How else would he have access to Hiro’s microbots? Now there was no choice but to take this matter into his own hands. He built 3D printed armor to cover up Baymax’s squishy body, programmed karate moves and overrode Tadashi’s non-violent programming. More importantly, he actually began bonding with Baymax, beginning to see him as a friend and companion rather than just this annoying thing following him around.
Newly outfitted, the duo set out to deal with the masked man for once and for all … and then promptly failed again. Baymax, concerned for Hiro’s mental health, called for his friends in the middle of their investigation. And while that turned out to be a good thing due to their imminent need for a rescue … it also attracted the masked man to their location in the first place. Oops. One exciting chase scene later, Hiro came to the realization that he couldn’t take on the masked man alone. Baymax managed to get a scan of the masked man’s vitals, so if Hiro could upgrade him enough to do a city-wide sweep, they’d be able to find him again. The trick would be what to do after that. So Hiro formed Big Hero 6 for the very first time: weaponizing each of the group’s science projects (the same ones he was awestruck by during his initial visit to SFIT with Tadashi) and building them armor to take advantage of them. For himself, he made an upgrade for Baymax with wings, thrusters, and a rocket punch. His own suit was much humbler - just extra protection with strong electromagnets to keep himself attached to Baymax’s back.
Upgrades complete, Hiro took Baymax out on a test flight. Though not exactly a smooth ride, it was an exciting one - and most importantly, Baymax was able to get a lock on the masked man using its upgraded sensors. The team tracked him down to a remote island out in the bay. It was clearly an abandoned laboratory of some sort. Inside, they discovered the remains of an experimental portal device - and security footage showing the device in action. A single pilot went into the portal device and to the in-between space beyond, planning to emerge from the other side. However … the technology malfunctioned and began destroying the portals, thus stranding her. The team quickly realized that Alistair Krei built the tech and must have been using the microbots to try and rebuild his failed experiment.
Or - at least that’s what they thought until the masked man showed up to attack them once again. This time, the team was prepared enough to put up a good fight. During the struggle, they managed to get his mask off, exposing the villain as being … Callaghan? Hiro was shocked and enraged by this revelation, especially when his accusations on Callaghan’s complicity in Tadashi’s death fell on deaf ears. Overwhelmed with anger and grief, Hiro ordered Baymax to kill Callaghan; however, the robot refused, claiming that Tadashi’s original programming did not permit him to go through with such an act. The rest of the team was equally shocked by Hiro’s murderous impulses. But Hiro couldn’t listen to reason with his brother’s murderer standing in front of him. He removed Tadashi’s programming completely, leaving only the additional programming that he himself had put into Baymax. The ‘bot responded by going on a wild rampage. Only after one of the team members managed to slide Tadashi’s pacifistic programming card back into Baymax’s slot did the robot finally stop. Unfortunately, Callaghan managed to escape during the confusion. The team was also angry with Hiro, saying that they never agreed to murder, only justice. Furious and heartbroken, Hiro sped off on Baymax and left his would-be teammates behind in the abandoned laboratory.
Hiro immediately tried to remove Tadashi’s programming chip from Baymax once again. If he had to kill Callaghan by himself, then so be it - he was too broken by grief to see past his own pain. But Baymax refused to release the chip to Hiro. True to his healthcare programming, he asked Hiro if killing Callaghan would truly bring him peace. Hiro thought about that question … and then broke down sobbing. Maybe Callaghan deserved death, but no matter what, killing the man responsible for his brother’s death would never bring Tadashi back. It seemed like there was no way out of this situation he’d gotten himself stuck in. Then Baymax pulled up several video logs from his creation: Tadashi working on Baymax. Tadashi getting smacked around by Baymax’s faulty programming. Tadashi eventually achieving success. Tadashi talking about all the good Baymax would do and all the people he could help. In that moment, Hiro realized that his brother’s legacy couldn’t be more violence and hate. He had to carry on his brother’s mission of helping people - of bringing Callaghan to justice and saving Krei (the object of Callaghan’s rampage) from the microbot swarm. The rest of the team showed up too, having been airlifted out by one of the teammate’s helicopters. Ultimately they forgave Hiro for being upset and almost kinda murdering a man.
And so the team found themselves racing over to Krei Laboratories to stop Callaghan once and for all. By then, Callaghan had already used Hiro’s microbots to reassemble one of Krei’s portal prototypes. He held it over Krei’s brand new lab, using it to pull the lab apart brick by brick and suck it into the unstable portal. And then finally, once Krei got to watch all of his hard work erased, Callaghan would feed Krei into the portal as well. Fortunately for him, though, Hiro and his team showed up to fight Callaghan. The team couldn’t get Callaghan’s mask off (and thus disable the neural transmitter), but they could destroy microbots until Callaghan ran out. So each of them used their new gear to destroy as much as they could while Hiro looked for ways to shut down the portal. While scanning it, however, Baymax found signs of life on the other side: the missing pilot (and Callaghan’s daughter). Hiro and Baymax charged in to save her.
The three of them almost made it back intact … until a stray chunk of building from the laboratory collided with Baymax, disabling his thrusters and destroying most of his armor. The only item remaining was his rocket punch. While Baymax could certainly use that to give Hiro and the pilot enough momentum to get back out of the portal, that would require it to sacrifice itself, as the blast would send the rest of Baymax’s body careening into the void. Hiro was heartbroken - this robot was the last remaining piece of his brother, for whom he had come to care very deeply. But there was nothing else to be done. He and the pilot escaped from the other side of the portal just as it closed, leaving Baymax to be lost forever. Callaghan was brought to justice but got his daughter back - and Hiro was, once again, alone.
Still, the kid perked up somewhat after that. Bringing Callaghan to justice helped bring him some peace, even if Baymax was now gone. He was back in touch with his friends as well. He began to attend classes at SFIT, started returning to some level of normalcy without his brother. But it still wasn’t quite enough. So when he later discovered that the rocket fist Baymax had used to push him out (and thus came with them) still held the chip with Tadashi’s programming, Hiro was overjoyed. He used the chip to rebuild Baymax from the ground up. Every detail identical to the bot that his brother had made. And with the chip in place, Baymax was still there - it was only his body that had temporarily been destroyed.
Together with Baymax and the rest of his friends, Hiro and the rest of Big Hero 6 continue to handle super villain threats as they show up in San Fransokyo. And while Hiro’s mental recovery is still slow, he is working on it. The crime fighting helps a lot. His friends and Baymax help a lot more.
PERSONALITY:
Hiro is a kid defined by passion. Both in how he acts when it’s on but also the glaring gap left when he doesn’t have anything to be passionate about. Everything else traces back to this core attribute, for good or for ill. In his natural state, Hiro approaches the world with an explosive level of energy: great when he’s focused, just kind of all over the place when not. Either he’s invested and obsessed or he’s completely detached - rarely anything in between. He functions best when he’s got some kind of outside reason for him to focus his attention. The kid’s still fourteen after all: he hasn’t quite mastered the art of working through the boring parts of a project unless he knows there’s a damn good reason for him to finish it. Tadashi served as that focus all through Hiro’s childhood; when they grew apart with Tadashi’s enrollment at SFIT, Hiro drifted into pursuits that had more immediate (if dangerous) rewards, like the bot fighting rings. This is also why Tadashi’s death and Hiro’s subsequent depression was so damn hard to work through: with no indication that anything would ever be better again, Hiro just didn’t have the energy to even try. In a way, Callaghan’s revenge plan was an incredible boon for Hiro: it gave him enough of a focus for him to actually apply his massive intellect and helped push him towards living a full life again.
Except for that whole part about Hiro almost being consumed by his grief and killing a dude. Oops. That’s the other downside of being someone as driven by his emotions as Hiro is. Positive ones can drive him to be a loyal friend, a stalwart ally and an inventor who can do a world of good with his genius. Negative one can unravel all of that in a heartbeat. Tadashi’s death resulted in some very dark obsessions taking over even after Callaghan’s plot got him moving again. If Baymax hadn’t kept videos of Tadashi creating him (and shown them to Hiro at his lowest point), then Hiro might have completely lost himself in his desire for revenge. Instead, he made a decision to do what his brother would have wanted: to help as many people as possible. Carrying that out has mostly gone well in practice.
Hiro Hamada might be an incredible engineering genius super hero, but he’s alsooo kind of a giant brat. Even with the maturation he’s gone through in his movie, he’s still a fourteen year old kid with way too much brainpower. His social skills are somewhat underdeveloped due to his long history of only having his brother for a friend. Sure, he can run a scam just fine, but when it comes to genuine interactions he gets shy. Much better to bond over saving the city from a super villain and figure out the social stuff later. He’s still better at making friends with robots than he is with people, though. Even so, Hiro is a person who functions better around other entities in their life, mechanical or otherwise. The loss of his friends (and being unable to bring Baymax with him) will push back his development somewhat. Conversely, seeing all the amazing tech people have to offer will push him back out of his shell. Hiro will be both wary of and vulnerable to the game community at large. It’ll all depend on who he runs into. (He’ll be deeply biased towards nerdy and/or awesome people.)
When he’s in his element, Hiro is quite prideful and cocky. He shows absolutely no hesitation in wanting to attend SFIT once he’s convinced that it’s awesome - and the same goes for everything else in his life. He’s also extremely aware of his own brilliance and more than a bit arrogant about it. Not to a fault, really - it doesn’t interfere with him making friends - but he absolutely does not tolerate people who just see a kid when they look at him. (Unless he’s deliberately playing off that expectation, but then he’s not trying to actually be friends with them). As long as people are willing to look past his age, though, he can be perfectly friendly. And he does manage to lead the team well in the moment even if he’s not real great at thinking in the long term just yet.
Selflessness is also something he hasn’t entirely gotten the hang of yet. In the context of superheroing, yes, absolutely - he’ll risk himself to protect someone else any day of the week. In terms of what he needs to get that far though … that could be rough. Hiro did start off doing things that were lucrative but very very illegal - and he’ll likely fall back into that at first when he arrives in the game. Petty theft and scamming, that kind of thing. He’s a practical guy, after all. Not to mention that being without his safety net will knock his development a few steps, something the whole Registered/Unsettled dichotomy really won’t help. He never had much trust in the police or authority figures to begin with given how badly both have failed him in canon. And if they keep calling CPS on him or turn him down on based on his age, you’d better believe he’ll be Unsettled before you can turn around. He’s still got a good foundation in the maturation he achieved post Tadashi’s death, but he’s also sensitive to loss. All this means that he’ll be tilted a little bit towards his pragmatic/excitable side than his mature side - especially since he’ll need to get the resources he needs to actually get started. One way or another. What’s a little petty thievery in the name of saving the world?
POWER:
Engineering Prodigy (Canon): One of Hiro’s defining traits is his massive genius-level intellect. (At least when it comes to STEM topics - the liberal arts are definitely not his thing.) The kid started doing his brother’s math homework at age 3, began designing robots and engineering projects with his brother shortly afterwards, and graduated from high school at thirteen. Not to mention all the stuff he’s done in the movie itself: neurally controlled microbots, powered armor for himself and his friends, weaponizing his friends’ science projects, rebuilding Baymax from scratch, etc. etc. He’s still young, so he doesn’t have as much experience, but in terms of sheer intelligence he can go toe to to with pretty much anyone else. He specializes in finding practical applications for otherwise theoretical concepts - it’s no fun unless he can actually build something with it. So he’ll be using his smarts to build all kinds of things once he’s in the game. Primary limitations will be money and equipment, although given he did all of the above working out of his garage, it won’t be that prohibitive of a barrier. He just needs a boost to get started.
Technokinesis (New): Hiro has the ability to move mechanical objects using only his mind. As long as there’s a servo, joint, or engine somewhere in the thing, he can start it moving without even having to touch it. This also comes with an extremely limited touch of cyberpathy - if a machine already has a particular kind of functionality, he can tell it to start that action (like starting a car without having to manually move every piece of machinery involved in ignition). It will also allow him to make his microbots move and form shapes without him needing a neural transmitter. However, this does not bestow any hacking abilities on him whatsoever, nor any advantages when it comes to programming. This is a hardware-only ability - no software. He could convince an ATM to spit out cash but not put anything into his account.
The ability also gives him a limited awareness of applicable machinery in his area - a buzzing-like sensation in the back of his head that gets louder if he listens in too much or too long. Great for knowing what he can and can’t affect, bad for prolonged use of his abilities. Or really being around machinery at all until he gets control over his new power. Kid’s going to have a lot of headaches while he practices. Note that this is the only additional “sense” he gets from using this power - everything else he has to rely on his normal ones. So he can’t send a bot with a camera on ahead to scout and get the info routed directly into his mind or something. He can “hear” where it is and gets a jolt of pain if it’s destroyed under his control, but he can’t see where it’s going. This also gives him a practical limit of only really being effective with his technokinesis if he can see what he’s doing. He also cannot directly input complex instructions into a computer system without having an input system to physically manipulate.
Hiro has a max radial range of about 5 meters (15 feet). That’s the max under perfect conditions - no blocked line of sight, nothing between him and the target except air or vacuum. The thicker the barrier in his way, the more his range shrinks. It gets down to a couple feet when he’s trying to reach through lead or titanium. Effectiveness also depends on the condition of the mechanisms he’s manipulating - he’s not going to force something with a weak servo to pry itself out of concrete. Or make a car engine jump out of a car for that matter. The more he works with the tech he’s moving, the easier and more effective his power usage will be. He also has a limited pool of energy available at any given time, with size, complexity and familiarity being key factors in how quickly he drains it. Velocity too - if he wants something move quickly, he can only do a few at once, and vice versa. A swarm of microbots designed to link up with each other and be moved by his powers? Doable. A swarm of random servos that he’s never seen before? He’ll get a quick burst of activity before collapsing under the strain. Also, anything controlled by a PC or an important NPC (like, say, the portal devices) will be highly resistant/immune, depending on the situation at hand. They’ll fall under the “too complex” rule. If necessary, a permissions post will be put up to handle this; however, I anticipate that it’ll be simpler and easier to work directly with the players involved if it comes up in game.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
Using his thread from the test drive meme here: http://etcelsior.dreamwidth.org/14039.html?thread=8172759#cmt8172759 Mostly 1st person action with a minor amount of prose.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
It all happened so quickly that Hiro barely had a chance to react. First the flash of light interrupting his late night lab session, then all this information getting shoved at him by vaguely ominous and completely untrustworthy authority figures. He’d never been a fan of the police anyway, so he was way less inclined to trust ones that apparently had a thing for kidnapping superheroes. Or at least, that sure was what Hiro had gotten out of it. And Hiro, according to very good sources (himself), was rarely wrong.
They let him go outside of some new housing where he was supposed to live. Their mistake. The moment the escort soldier turned her back, Hiro slipped down an alleyway and made himself scarce.
He found his way to a small café not far from the housing development he’d just left. Dodging past a friendly waitress, he slipped into a booth near the back where hopefully he wouldn’t be noticed. Time for a game plan. He emptied everything he owned out on the table: a few crumpled bills, a stylus (now stolen from the SFIT lab, oops), a folded piece of paper with some notes on it, and … Wait, hold on. He’d set his cell phone on a shelf in his lab when he’d started in on the really detailed actuator machining. So what was this device in his pocket?
Hiro laid it out on the table with the others. It looked like a cell phone, but it seemed to be emitting a high-pitched whine that Hiro didn’t entirely like. Tentatively, he reached out to start tapping buttons. The first thing it pulled up was some kind of network - garbage, the thing wanted him to post with his real name attached, like some idiot who just stumbled onto the internet yesterday - but after some fiddling, he got it to pull up what looked like an ordinary phone menu. So far, so good. He’d call the lab first; training Baymax to pick up phones had been both hilarious and useful, since the bot’s canned responses tended to scare off any callers who didn’t know Hiro already.
The phone beeped questioningly in response: “The number you have dialed is out of service and cannot be reached.”
“What?” he said. Fingers danced over the phone again as he tried to get it to work. “No, no no, come on…” A very real chill of fear went through him. Had something happened to Baymax? No, the bot was probably just clumsy. He must have knocked the darn thing over while trying to pick it up. Lovably squishy but terrible at anything requiring fine hand-eye coordination, that was Baymax.
He forced himself to take a deep breath. If he couldn’t get his own cell phone to work, then he had to try his friends. He dialed Honey Lemon’s first - she’d be the one least likely to yell at him for getting himself stranded in Florida. The same error message. The same for the others. Even Fred, who he thought for sure would get some kind of message … nada. That initial chill quickly became a solid ice lump in the pit of his stomach. By the time he tried Aunt Cass’ number, he knew what the response would be: nothing at all. No indication at all that any of them were out there.
His breath came out in one long trembling huff. Suddenly, he found himself wiping at his eyes, trying to ignore the sudden blurring of tears. He was utterly and completely alone. Not even Baymax waddling beside him this time. The thought of it made his body feel numb, like maybe if he just closed his eyes he’d wake up safe in his bed again. He liked adventure - loved it, even - but he’d never been this far away from everyone he’d ever known before. Even during the worst depths of his depression, he’d had Tadashi’s friends available even if he didn’t want to talk to them. Maybe he really was in a different universe like the Porter officials had said. The thought should have excited him…
“Are you all right?”
Hiro jolted up. The waitress from the restaurant was standing over him. Blinking hard, he scooped the rest of his possessions back into his hoodie pockets. “Y-yeah,” he said. “I’m just - “ He blanked for a moment, struggling to find a good lie. “My parents were gonna meet me here, but they changed their mind. Different restaurant.” Before she could object, Hiro slid out of the booth and bolted for the door.
New plan: find a way back to San Fransokyo the hard way. Or … if this multiple universe thing really did turn out to be true … Well, then he’d have to find a different way to cope.
FINAL NOTES:
Fun fact! The Disney version of Big Hero 6 is actually part of the Marvel multiverse with its own universe number: Earth-TRN441. It is distinct from the current MCU.
no subject
NAME: Rho
AGE: 34
JOURNAL: galatea @ DW (though I don’t really use it)
IM / EMAIL: ishidaaaugh @ gmail
PLURK: katoptron
RETURNING: No characters currently in game! Hiro is a reapp, though.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Hiro Hamada
CHARACTER AGE: 16 (in-game birthdays + time passed with extra canon)
SERIES: Big Hero 6 (Disney/Marvel), movie and TV series
CHRONOLOGY: End of current TV series canon. He was also in MoM for a little over a year and will remember his time in game.
CLASS: Hero… mostly. Hiro absolutely means well, but inevitably things go wrong. As they already did the first time around.
HOUSING: No specific preferences. He’ll probably move out quickly anyway so he’s closer to his brother.
BACKGROUND: Normally I’d just re-paste my previous section, but I’m over my word limit and the wiki covers all the details needed, including new TV series stuff:
https://bighero6.fandom.com/wiki/Hiro_Hamada
PERSONALITY:
For this section, I’ve added updates at the end of each paragraph to reflect how Hiro’s changed in game.
Hiro is a kid defined by passion. Both in how he acts when it’s on but also the glaring gap left when he doesn’t have anything to be passionate about. Everything else traces back to this core attribute, for good or for ill. In his natural state, Hiro approaches the world with an explosive level of energy: great when he’s focused, just kind of all over the place when not. Either he’s invested and obsessed or he’s completely detached - rarely anything in between. He functions best when he’s got some kind of outside reason for him to focus his attention. The kid’s still fourteen after all: he hasn’t quite mastered the art of working through the boring parts of a project unless he knows there’s a damn good reason for him to finish it. Tadashi served as that focus all through Hiro’s childhood; when they grew apart with Tadashi’s enrollment at SFIT, Hiro drifted into pursuits that had more immediate (if dangerous) rewards, like the bot fighting rings. This is also why Tadashi’s death and Hiro’s subsequent depression was so damn hard to work through: with no indication that anything would ever be better again, Hiro just didn’t have the energy to even try. In a way, Callaghan’s revenge plan was an incredible boon for Hiro: it gave him enough of a focus for him to actually apply his massive intellect and helped push him towards living a full life again. MoM Changes: Hiro’s passion is still a driving force, but it’s not quite as all-consuming as before. He’s still young and prone to mistakes, but he’s also had a chance to make more of them. And how to find value in the quieter parts of his life. Still hyperactive, just a bit more balanced.
Except for that whole part about Hiro almost being consumed by his grief and killing a dude. Oops. That’s the other downside of being someone as driven by his emotions as Hiro is. Positive ones can drive him to be a loyal friend, a stalwart ally and an inventor who can do a world of good with his genius. Negative one can unravel all of that in a heartbeat. Tadashi’s death resulted in some very dark obsessions taking over even after Callaghan’s plot got him moving again. If Baymax hadn’t kept videos of Tadashi creating him (and shown them to Hiro at his lowest point), then Hiro might have completely lost himself in his desire for revenge. Instead, he made a decision to do what his brother would have wanted: to help as many people as possible. Carrying that out has mostly gone well in practice. MoM Changes: Due to a number of hideous messes (and Crane, of all people, however circuitously), Hiro has exorcised most of his revenge demons, especially most things to do with Callaghan specifically. But that capacity for darkness still remains in him, just - as with his passion - somewhat ameliorated.
Hiro Hamada might be an incredible engineering genius super hero, but he’s alsooo kind of a giant brat. Even with the maturation he’s gone through in his movie, he’s still a fourteen year old kid with way too much brainpower. His social skills are somewhat underdeveloped due to his long history of only having his brother for a friend. Sure, he can run a scam just fine, but when it comes to genuine interactions he gets shy. Much better to bond over saving the city from a super villain and figure out the social stuff later. He’s still better at making friends with robots than he is with people, though. Even so, Hiro is a person who functions better around other entities in their life, mechanical or otherwise. The loss of his friends (and being unable to bring Baymax with him) will push back his development somewhat. Conversely, seeing all the amazing tech people have to offer will push him back out of his shell. Hiro will be both wary of and vulnerable to the game community at large. It’ll all depend on who he runs into. (He’ll be deeply biased towards nerdy and/or awesome people.) MoM Changes: Mostly the same, let’s be real here. But he had a wide social circle in game, partially because of his awkwardness. Less about him learning to deal with people and more finding people who like dealing with him.
When he’s in his element, Hiro is quite prideful and cocky. He shows absolutely no hesitation in wanting to attend SFIT once he’s convinced that it’s awesome - and the same goes for everything else in his life. He’s also extremely aware of his own brilliance and more than a bit arrogant about it. Not to a fault, really - it doesn’t interfere with him making friends - but he absolutely does not tolerate people who just see a kid when they look at him. (Unless he’s deliberately playing off that expectation, but then he’s not trying to actually be friends with them). As long as people are willing to look past his age, though, he can be perfectly friendly. And he does manage to lead the team well in the moment even if he’s not real great at thinking in the long term just yet. MoM Changes: Also pretty much the same. He’s made some serious mistakes to put a dent in this … while at the same time accomplishing some pretty amazing stuff to buoy himself up. Balanced out overall.
Selflessness is also something he hasn’t entirely gotten the hang of yet. In the context of superheroing, yes, absolutely - he’ll risk himself to protect someone else any day of the week. In terms of what he needs to get that far though … that could be rough. Hiro did start off doing things that were lucrative but very very illegal - and he’ll likely fall back into that at first when he arrives in the game. Petty theft and scamming, that kind of thing. He’s a practical guy, after all. Not to mention that being without his safety net will knock his development a few steps, something the whole Registered/Unsettled dichotomy really won’t help. He never had much trust in the police or authority figures to begin with given how badly both have failed him in canon. And if they keep calling CPS on him or turn him down on based on his age, you’d better believe he’ll be Unsettled before you can turn around. He’s still got a good foundation in the maturation he achieved post Tadashi’s death, but he’s also sensitive to loss. All this means that he’ll be tilted a little bit towards his pragmatic/excitable side than his mature side - especially since he’ll need to get the resources he needs to actually get started. One way or another. What’s a little petty thievery in the name of saving the world? MoM Changes: A returning Hiro has experienced more of his life back home in addition to at least having seen a glimpse of his settled life in game, even if not much of it remains. It’ll take him less time to settle into a more productive lifestyle. Which isn’t to say he won’t ever have wild ideas or anarchic tendencies … that’s just Hiro’s MO. But he’s a responsible mad scientist. Ish.
POWER:
Hiro’s powerset is identical to his previous load out (Engineering Prodigy, Technokinesis, Data Hopping). He is bringing in one of his suits of armor as part of his prodigy skill.
Engineering Prodigy (Canon): One of Hiro’s defining traits is his massive genius-level intellect. (At least when it comes to STEM topics - the liberal arts are definitely not his thing.) The kid started doing his brother’s math homework at age 3, began designing robots and engineering projects with his brother shortly afterwards, and graduated from high school at thirteen. Not to mention all the stuff he’s done in the movie/TV show itself: neurally controlled microbots, powered armor for himself and his friends, weaponizing his friends’ science projects, rebuilding Baymax from scratch, invisibility armor, holodeck, mecha armor, etc. etc. He’s still young, so he doesn’t have as much experience, but in terms of sheer intelligence he can go toe to to with pretty much anyone else. He specializes in finding practical applications for otherwise theoretical concepts - it’s no fun unless he can actually build something with it. So he’ll be using his smarts to build all kinds of things once he’s in the game. Primary limitations will be money and equipment, although given he did all of the above working out of his garage, it won’t be that prohibitive of a barrier. He just needs a boost to get started.
When he arrives in game this time around, he will be wearing one of his later suits of armor: black/indigo carbon fiber with magnetic projectiles. When activated, these projectiles generate a magnetic connection that he can use for various purposes (pulling things around, swinging on buildings, immobilizing enemies, etc.)
Technokinesis (New): Hiro has the ability to move mechanical objects using only his mind. As long as there’s a servo, joint, or engine somewhere in the thing, he can start it moving without even having to touch it. This also comes with an extremely limited touch of cyberpathy - if a machine already has a particular kind of functionality, he can tell it to start that action (like starting a car without having to manually move every piece of machinery involved in ignition). It will also allow him to make his microbots move and form shapes without him needing a neural transmitter. However, this does not bestow any hacking abilities on him whatsoever, nor any advantages when it comes to programming. This is a hardware-only ability - no software. He could convince an ATM to spit out cash but not put anything into his account.
The ability also gives him a limited awareness of applicable machinery in his area - a buzzing-like sensation in the back of his head that gets louder if he listens in too much or too long. Great for knowing what he can and can’t affect, bad for prolonged use of his abilities. Or really being around machinery at all until he gets control over his new power. Kid’s going to have a lot of headaches while he practices. Note that this is the only additional “sense” he gets from using this power - everything else he has to rely on his normal ones. So he can’t send a bot with a camera on ahead to scout and get the info routed directly into his mind or something. He can “hear” where it is and gets a jolt of pain if it’s destroyed under his control, but he can’t see where it’s going. This also gives him a practical limit of only really being effective with his technokinesis if he can see what he’s doing. He also cannot directly input complex instructions into a computer system without having an input system to physically manipulate.
Hiro has a max radial range of about 5 meters (15 feet). That’s the max under perfect conditions - no blocked line of sight, nothing between him and the target except air or vacuum. The thicker the barrier in his way, the more his range shrinks. It gets down to a couple feet when he’s trying to reach through lead or titanium. Effectiveness also depends on the condition of the mechanisms he’s manipulating - he’s not going to force something with a weak servo to pry itself out of concrete. Or make a car engine jump out of a car for that matter. The more he works with the tech he’s moving, the easier and more effective his power usage will be. He also has a limited pool of energy available at any given time, with size, complexity and familiarity being key factors in how quickly he drains it. Velocity too - if he wants something move quickly, he can only do a few at once, and vice versa. A swarm of microbots designed to link up with each other and be moved by his powers? Doable. A swarm of random servos that he’s never seen before? He’ll get a quick burst of activity before collapsing under the strain. Also, anything controlled by a PC or an important NPC (like, say, the portal devices) will be highly resistant/immune, depending on the situation at hand. They’ll fall under the “too complex” rule. If necessary, a permissions post will be put up to handle this; however, I anticipate that it’ll be simpler and easier to work directly with the players involved if it comes up in game.
Data Hopping: Hiro can convert himself into data by hopping into a device with built-in communication functionality. In theory, he can then travel along available data lines and come out the other side of any other device equipped with similar communication abilities on the other end. In practice ... He had to get a lot of practice. Unlike the Navis (who have a similar power, and from whom Hiro learned a lot of the ropes), Hiro had to set beacons for himself at both his entry and exit points in order to navigate in anything approaching speed. He can always find his way back out through the device he entered through, but if he's lost enough it could take him quite a bit of time and effort to do that. More importantly, it means jumping out a foreign comm is going to be wildly difficult if he's not familiar with it already or isn't traveling alongside someone else who can do the same kind of thing.
Hiro can be trapped in a device if someone turns off its communication functionality. It won't necessarily hurt him to be in one long term, but he's human after all. The longer he's away from a physical body, the more of a pain it is to adjust to physical necessities like eating, etc. again. Destruction of the device will also boot him out with a bad headache. He's also limited to jumping into devices that specifically have some kind of communication function, though it doesn't necessarily have to be a comm. (A video game console with wireless communications would be fair game but an ATM, for example, would not.) Jumping into tech controlled by other players will only be done with direct permission in-thread. Since he used the power quite a bit in MoM previously, he’s gotten pretty skilled at it … but he will be rusty upon return and need to practice again.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: https://maskormenace.dreamwidth.org/302944.html
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: https://maskormenacelogs.dreamwidth.org/542052.html
FINAL NOTES:
Nothing in particular! I’m happy to provide more detail re: his reapp if needed.