Syndesis is, for all intents and purposes, my first real CoH character.
And the story is...strange. I draw, you see. That's the background. I'm not a great artist, but I've always done sketches and so on.
Back in 1999, I was just beginning to get into anime. Until then, I'd done mostly funny cartoons, some superhero-type figures, so on. The whole manga style was new to me, and when I first tried to draw it...ugh. My attempts were awful.
Which is why I remember this one sketch.
There I was, randomly doodling, producing exceedingly poor manga-type figures alongside rather better depictions of cartoon animals (done to cheer myself up). Then I suddenly had this idea...and promptly filled the page with a full-body figure.
One straight shot with 2B pencil, no erasing. A way better anime-style sketch than anything else I'd done. I can do better stuff these days, but what I had there, that afternoon, was better than anything I'd done before. It was just right. I'd gotten the proportions and facial features down. I'd nailed it. It was a breakthrough, a real 'eureka' moment.
And it really was random sketching. I had no story for the character, no concept of who she was, nothing. I'd just added detail after detail, letting it flow naturally...until I ended up with this scruffy-haired girl with goggles, a skin-tight suit with stripes down the side, armoured gloves and chunky boots.
Smirking at me. Out of the page.
I sort of looked at this for a while, then scrawled a name at the bottom of the image: "Psycho Girl - Syndesis"
And that was because I'd been looking up obscure cell biology terms for class. I just liked the sound of the word.
It was clear to me then, just looking at the drawing and her grinning visage, that she had to be a crazy hyperkinetic villain, loud, brash, reckless, and highly, highly destructive. Ridiculously oversized boots aside, there was something about the design that screamed speed.
I liked the idea. I did. But I never found anything to use it for, and eventually the picture got put away in my great box of old sketchbooks, shoved under the bed, and forgotten about.
Until some five years later, in 2004.
That's when City of Heroes came out. I actually had to buy a new graphics card and upgrade my machine before I could play the game, but by damn I was going to. Because I'd been waiting for CoH from the first day I heard about it.
So I started playing. And hit a roadblock.
Obviously I made a whole bunch of experimental lowbie characters. Doesn't everyone? But after a week or so...I still hadn't found anything I really liked. Nothing...really clicked. I knew I was gonna RP, but either the personalities didn't fit, or I couldn't find the right powersets.
After dying one too many times as a blaster, I decided to give this scrapper thing a try.
That was all about flipping out and punching people, right? And soloing well. Sounded good.
But I needed a concept. I didn't have one. I moped about this a little, then turned, in desperation, to my old sketchbooks.
You can see where this is going.
I found the Syndesis drawing. And in that instant, it clicked. Again. For the second time, that one sketch has gave me an epiphany.
The visual look was something I could replicate in the costume creator. Hell, it'd be a damn sight better than any of my previous lame attempts at superhero costumes. And while I'd never spent much time fleshing her out as a character, anyone grinning like that had to have a madcap streak. As an RP persona, that would be fun. Devil-may-care attitude, and the sheer irreverance to crack jokes in the middle of combat...
Although...for whatever reason, I'd originally seen her as a villain. You couldn't do villains in City of Heroes (CoV didn't exist then, remember?). That was a problem. So what could I...
...no. Wait. The name. Syndesis. Didn't that sound an awful lot like that Freedom Phalanx NPC?
What was his name...Synapse?
At this point, my mind started to really race. Maybe 'Syndesis' was an ex-villain from his Rogues Gallery. I mean, hey, he's a speedster like the Flash, he HAS to have a Rogues Gallery, right? So a sort of evil female rival, who's somehow gone over to the other side and is working for the good guys now.
And Synapse is Science origin, right? So Syndesis must be too, which certainly fits the fact her name's a biology reference. So someone had to create her - a mad scientist mastermind type, obviously. So a speedster created by a mad scientist, because Syndesis has to be a speedster too. That fits with the motif and her sleek visual design. I'd wanted to try out the Super Speed travel power, anyway. And there was a punching set for scrappers, Dark Melee - including an attack with a massive machine-gun of punches. Perfect.
For a secondary, well...Super Reflexes seemed like it could work. But the biology-themed name seemed to suggest...Regeneration.
A character with hyper-fast movement should have an accelerated metabolism, right? Which meant she could heal fast too. Well, at least according to comic book science.
That was great. That was perfect. But why was she a hero?
Wait, what was all that stuff in the game's backstory, about some alien invasion? That whole Rikti War thing? Wasn't it the explanation why the city is in turmoil, but a new generation of heroes is emerging, yadda yadda yadda?
Logically, it can't have only been heroes who fought in the Rikti War. There must have been villains too. And it stands to reason that some supervillains who came out and fought the invaders would, in a post-War world, be given at least some amnesty for their crimes...
Perfect.
So that's the story behind Syndesis. That's why she's a wild and vaguely psychotic speedster, yet with a certain affiable charm. She gets along with heroes and villains equally, because, far as she's concerned, it's all the same thing really.
She claims it's just inertia that keeps her on the side of the law, and possibly Paragon City's better dental plan. Though, if pushed, she will admit to losing some sort of bet to Synapse at the post-Rikti War celebrations.
Alcohol was involved.
("Hey, 'sis, you should totally apply for a Hero License once all this is over. It'll be awesome, whadda ya say?" "...yer out of yer freakin' skull." "Oh, you're only saying that. Another round?" "...sure.")
-- Acyl
And the story is...strange. I draw, you see. That's the background. I'm not a great artist, but I've always done sketches and so on.
Back in 1999, I was just beginning to get into anime. Until then, I'd done mostly funny cartoons, some superhero-type figures, so on. The whole manga style was new to me, and when I first tried to draw it...ugh. My attempts were awful.
Which is why I remember this one sketch.
There I was, randomly doodling, producing exceedingly poor manga-type figures alongside rather better depictions of cartoon animals (done to cheer myself up). Then I suddenly had this idea...and promptly filled the page with a full-body figure.
One straight shot with 2B pencil, no erasing. A way better anime-style sketch than anything else I'd done. I can do better stuff these days, but what I had there, that afternoon, was better than anything I'd done before. It was just right. I'd gotten the proportions and facial features down. I'd nailed it. It was a breakthrough, a real 'eureka' moment.
And it really was random sketching. I had no story for the character, no concept of who she was, nothing. I'd just added detail after detail, letting it flow naturally...until I ended up with this scruffy-haired girl with goggles, a skin-tight suit with stripes down the side, armoured gloves and chunky boots.
Smirking at me. Out of the page.
I sort of looked at this for a while, then scrawled a name at the bottom of the image: "Psycho Girl - Syndesis"
And that was because I'd been looking up obscure cell biology terms for class. I just liked the sound of the word.
It was clear to me then, just looking at the drawing and her grinning visage, that she had to be a crazy hyperkinetic villain, loud, brash, reckless, and highly, highly destructive. Ridiculously oversized boots aside, there was something about the design that screamed speed.
I liked the idea. I did. But I never found anything to use it for, and eventually the picture got put away in my great box of old sketchbooks, shoved under the bed, and forgotten about.
Until some five years later, in 2004.
That's when City of Heroes came out. I actually had to buy a new graphics card and upgrade my machine before I could play the game, but by damn I was going to. Because I'd been waiting for CoH from the first day I heard about it.
So I started playing. And hit a roadblock.
Obviously I made a whole bunch of experimental lowbie characters. Doesn't everyone? But after a week or so...I still hadn't found anything I really liked. Nothing...really clicked. I knew I was gonna RP, but either the personalities didn't fit, or I couldn't find the right powersets.
After dying one too many times as a blaster, I decided to give this scrapper thing a try.
That was all about flipping out and punching people, right? And soloing well. Sounded good.
But I needed a concept. I didn't have one. I moped about this a little, then turned, in desperation, to my old sketchbooks.
You can see where this is going.
I found the Syndesis drawing. And in that instant, it clicked. Again. For the second time, that one sketch has gave me an epiphany.
The visual look was something I could replicate in the costume creator. Hell, it'd be a damn sight better than any of my previous lame attempts at superhero costumes. And while I'd never spent much time fleshing her out as a character, anyone grinning like that had to have a madcap streak. As an RP persona, that would be fun. Devil-may-care attitude, and the sheer irreverance to crack jokes in the middle of combat...
Although...for whatever reason, I'd originally seen her as a villain. You couldn't do villains in City of Heroes (CoV didn't exist then, remember?). That was a problem. So what could I...
...no. Wait. The name. Syndesis. Didn't that sound an awful lot like that Freedom Phalanx NPC?
What was his name...Synapse?
At this point, my mind started to really race. Maybe 'Syndesis' was an ex-villain from his Rogues Gallery. I mean, hey, he's a speedster like the Flash, he HAS to have a Rogues Gallery, right? So a sort of evil female rival, who's somehow gone over to the other side and is working for the good guys now.
And Synapse is Science origin, right? So Syndesis must be too, which certainly fits the fact her name's a biology reference. So someone had to create her - a mad scientist mastermind type, obviously. So a speedster created by a mad scientist, because Syndesis has to be a speedster too. That fits with the motif and her sleek visual design. I'd wanted to try out the Super Speed travel power, anyway. And there was a punching set for scrappers, Dark Melee - including an attack with a massive machine-gun of punches. Perfect.
For a secondary, well...Super Reflexes seemed like it could work. But the biology-themed name seemed to suggest...Regeneration.
A character with hyper-fast movement should have an accelerated metabolism, right? Which meant she could heal fast too. Well, at least according to comic book science.
That was great. That was perfect. But why was she a hero?
Wait, what was all that stuff in the game's backstory, about some alien invasion? That whole Rikti War thing? Wasn't it the explanation why the city is in turmoil, but a new generation of heroes is emerging, yadda yadda yadda?
Logically, it can't have only been heroes who fought in the Rikti War. There must have been villains too. And it stands to reason that some supervillains who came out and fought the invaders would, in a post-War world, be given at least some amnesty for their crimes...
Perfect.
So that's the story behind Syndesis. That's why she's a wild and vaguely psychotic speedster, yet with a certain affiable charm. She gets along with heroes and villains equally, because, far as she's concerned, it's all the same thing really.
She claims it's just inertia that keeps her on the side of the law, and possibly Paragon City's better dental plan. Though, if pushed, she will admit to losing some sort of bet to Synapse at the post-Rikti War celebrations.
Alcohol was involved.
("Hey, 'sis, you should totally apply for a Hero License once all this is over. It'll be awesome, whadda ya say?" "...yer out of yer freakin' skull." "Oh, you're only saying that. Another round?" "...sure.")
-- Acyl