Worldbuilding 2: Raquel

Now that the subject of Doctor Ovan Maxwell has been covered, I will be moving onto the woman who was his wife and remains the only stable form of romantic interest in his life, Raquel Johnson-Blaze.

Raquel comes from a different background altogether from Ovan, given that she is not only a combatant from the time she could walk, but that she is also not white. Raquel comes from a Native-American and Japanese household, dealing with a great deal of otherness in society. This otherness spurred her into a great deal more physical training than she should have experienced under her mother’s hand. Both her parents are portions of the first portion of Sentai seen in the world as a global presence. While historical records differ across the board whether Sentai have existed before them, these are the first who would focus on marketing and making themselves known to the public.

Raquel is meant to set up the familial aspect of this story, that there is a portion of the Sentai as a whole that sees combat against evil as something that must be passed down. She was drilled in the art of justice and protecting others since she could understand the terms and she instructed this onto the four children that she takes care of.

Her temperament can best be described as explosive, but loving. Her own mother was forced through severe emotional repression and taught Raquel to never let an emotion stay hidden. It is rare Raquel will not speak her mind. If there is something she hates, she will deal with it directly and not let there be any confusion on the issue. The same could be said of her parenting style in the home, where she will be direct with the kids if they show signs of mental trauma, depression or pain.

Her greatest issue, however, is her love for Ovan. Their conflicting understandings of right and wrong often result in Raquel screaming at the numb sort of wall Maxwell puts up. Maxwell will speak his mind in most cases until he reaches the point where he needs to express his heart fully. Those moments spur mistrust in Raquel, which led them to their divorce. Compounding the issue is Maxwell’s lack of drive. If the doctor focused himself, he could be solving so many medical issues in the world, helping thousands. Yet he’s content to laze about, helping those in more immediate danger. If there are none, it’s time to slowly study, a relaxed approach. It’s a complex series of arguments between them. There are times in which Ovan is fixated on studying one aspect of monsters. Other times, he wants to do nothing at all. He’s inconsistent.

One of the reasons I do this is the contrast that can be shown in characters. There are some people in real life who will constantly be changing their mind on things, who are still discovering who they are years into life when they are meant to ‘have it all together’. Others are arguably the same person that they were when they were in high school. Media should be able to show both of these aspects, people who are trying to grow and people who do not wish to have any change.

As far as training the children to be soldiers as she was, Raquel has mixed feelings. Her time with her husband taught her that bringing children in to fight the world’s woes can often damage them emotionally. Within herself, she is still unsure how killing living beings for so long has altered her from whatever life others led. The conflict is a bit more severe, given that she spends more time training with the two children in the house which belonged to her sister than the two Maxwell left her. Those associated with Ovan Maxwell, in her mind, were not made to do war. She recognizes the behavior, but assumes the children share their father’s lack of ambition.

The creation of Raquel was as slow process which involved a lot of looking at family dynamics. Coming from a house with an essentially  single mother, I feel more attracted to narratives which feature this. As a parent, she shows herself to be competent, able to handle the lives of four young adults all at once without trouble.

Overall, she is a character rooted in her thoughts on good and evil. Evil is something to be destroyed, otherwise it will destroy all.

 

Worldbuilding 1

The goal of this work, as a whole, is to fix the issues found in the Americanized shows in the Japanese Sentai genre (Power Rangers, Masked Rider, Beetle Borgs, VR Troopers, etc.) and make a better, more adult whole. This comes out of a love of both the original shows and the American counterparts, but coming to the realization in my older years that they wouldn’t ever truly work through more adult themes such as sex, drugs, death and the possible destruction of the landscapes.

For this first section of worldbuilding, however, I will be explaining the character of Dr. Ovan Maxwell and his purpose in the world.

To begin, he has a purpose due to a world inhabited by monsters, found in my works. These are beings made through means outside of the standard evolutionary chain, most often, but occur often enough that they are an issue for the common citizens of the world. They are not to be studied as animals, as they cannot truly be called that. More often than not, they have intelligence levels equal to humans. This issue makes for a greater ethical problem than shall be discussed in the article. How it pertains to Dr. Maxwell is that the fields of study he takes, Xeno/Cryptobiology, are not something which can be done by the average person.

Monsters are deadly things, which often grow to larger sizes if they are not dealt with properly. Their natural processes incorporate magic, extraterrestrial matter, organ-systems which would baffle those without proper study. To truly understand one of these creatures, one must have a greater understanding of not only the biology of the given world, but expand their thoughts to the things man cannot or perhaps was never meant to understand.

Maxwell is a smart man, perhaps even thinking himself smarter than he is. He’s quite crass, as you’ve seen, using humor as a device to distance himself from the world as much as possible. Like many doctors, he cares little for his own health, pushing himself to exhaustion, drinking, smoking occasionally. He is not one for books or television, focused on squeezing every story of pain and stupidity life can throw him instead. Sitting still is not something he can manage easily.

His greater flaw is his ‘toxic compassion’, as he calls it. When he saw a girl getting abused by her father and mother, he killed them both and adopted the girl illegally. When his Yakuza drinking buddy was about to be offed by his boss, he performed an illegal form of alchemy to help save the man. Though he will spread lies about the situations, he likes the feeling of martyrdom he gets from these activities. He does the impossible with disrespect to the law so that he can go about his way with a smile.

His parents were likely strict people, focusing him on medicine and science. He understands his resentment in rebellion, but still does it, enjoying the feeling of spiting his elders. Family as a whole doesn’t grip with him well, despite how much he tries to make his own. This desire he can’t rightly explain, however. He doesn’t have any fatherly qualities, let alone ones that would make a good husband.

This shall be continued next time as we speak of Raquel and how the two of them work together.

14 September 1990

Of the many things a human being can be called in their life, one I don’t hear quite enough as I should is ‘ass-sucker’. ‘Asshole’ can be too simple, you’re just what get shit out of. You expel shit. You contract to release it, you see. ‘Little shit’ is just playing off of ‘shit’ and making it more minuscule, which really doesn’t make shit better or worse. It doesn’t matter how big the dog shit you stepped in is, you still stepped in dog shit. ‘Ass sucker’ is a compound of these two things. You not only have to deal with that which releases shit, but the shit itself which might be there. This sort of term should not be used lightly, given these implications.

So, in this moment, I was being quite the ass-sucker.

I was stuck in a dark room, God knows where, my hands both cuffed loosely to the chair I was in. For now, I was rolling about a small vial in my hand. Whoever took me here was stupid to not check my personage before I woke up and they would fucking pay for it. It was an airborn toxin that, when released, would cause the most noxious manner of vomit you could imagine. Should there be any manner of food in your stomach, it would leave you, violently. Certainly it wouldn’t kill anyone, certainly, but I wouldn’t stand to let myself be taken advantage of by any organization without giving whatever bastard what dared to do the advantage taking getting a metaphorical boot to the balls/ovaries.

Of course, I had been drinking so heavily last night that my stomach was practically empty, so I had little to worry of.

A woman watched me with eyes that clearly wished to be looking at most other things but me and my smug grin. Long, thick brown hair, brownish completion, nice rack, all the things ass-suckers like me notice first. Behind this woman were two guards I didn’t care to learn the names or faces of, guns poised at me in case I acted out. They kept their eyes to the woman, waiting for an order to fire. To them she seemed to be someone that controlled through… Power? Fear? For the moment, I showed what little respect she was owed. After all, I didn’t see her eyes wander to my crotch since the first few moments she walked in, all eye contact since then. Eye contact that had lasted nearly thirty minutes… or five, like I give a fuck about what time it is.

“No smart comments yet?” She finally said, not budging an inch from where she stood. I gave off a small laugh at that.

“Glad to know my reputation proceeds me, but even a master doesn’t have a joke for every occasion.”

“Well, from my reading, you are the joke for every occasion. That would be the reputation.” Damn, one date in and she’s already cutting me down a peg, “Doctorate in Xenobiology and after that… Drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, owning an unlicensed firear-”

“Woah woah woah, it was licensed… Just not for me.”

“Nice try there, bud. Maybe try to lay on the smoother jokes when you’re not hungover and dealing with a woman who could crush your skull in her thighs.”

“Trust me, they never actually get smooth, hon. Love a taste of those thighs, though.”

“I’m really curious, just what were you doing in China for an entire year.”

“Sometimes a man has to… Get away, you know.”

“Alchemy is still illegal my international law, dipshit.”

“I’m sorry, the Yakuza are usually such a law abiding much. Must have caught them on an off day.”

“We know you got the seals to throw together some type of organic matter… Just be honest with us before we assume the worst.”

My hands went to run through my hair but were swiftly brought to a stop by the chains binding my wrists. I grumbled, leaning back into my chair. My index finger clicked against the cheap metal of the chair, “Artificial heart, that’s it. They needed someone who could both… Make the manner of magical organ they required and install it. That’s a very short list of people.”

“Not one you should fall on. You’re not a trained surgeon.”

“I dabble.” I said with a shrug, smirking in a rather confident way, “It’s like I’m smart or some shit.” I felt that usual feeling I grew while high-risk situations came up, where my already prickish behavior skyrocketed to pure overconfident bragging, “It isn’t like I don’t get training with some manner of surgery in my field. They don’t just send you off with a textbook study of monsters. Such a shame those Sentai motherfuckers don’t leave behind corpses.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were supposed to be a doctor of Xenobiology. You do realize what happens to that shit when you leave even a scrap of them? They regrow, get bigger, reanimate, all that shit.” The woman snapped, “I see a fucking stain of flesh on the ground, I obliterate it.”

By now, the gears clicked into place and I was certain just where I was. My eyes gave a roll as I gripped onto the chair, “So its you assholes then.”

“Assholes? We’re the asshole’s here?” She walked closer to me at last, a fire burning in her eyes, “We’re trying to save the world, shitstain, so maybe you don’t call us the ones screwing things over. I look at you and I see a man who does nothing but his life but squander it… Waste it away finding new ways to make the papers or gain notoriety with the precious few in the darker corners of the world who are smart enough to know your real game…”

“You vague concept of ‘saving the world’ is a bit… Well, fucking stupid. Every time you guys dismantle a damned criminal organization, look at that, there’s another. Oops, better assemble a whole new team of inexperienced minors. How old were you when you were drafted into this kind of war?”

“Fifteen, so?”

“So? Are you telling me that the army of America would take a fifteen year old kid? Shit, name a country that would take a kid that young and trust me, those are the kinds of countries that you fuckers never go to. There’s wars going on in the world, famine, fucking… AIDS, I don’t know, but you guys spend your endless budget going after… What the name of those new guys, Candy Land?”

“Listen.” She had the most dismissive sort of tone with her words, eyes, body and balled up fist. I weakly raised up the vial, my eyes focused tight on her for fear that she might begin her assault,”My parents were fucking warriors, two people who work their hands to the bone to save this world… From the age I could walk, I trained my body in the art of combat because I knew I’d need to take my mother’s place. Don’t tell me my position here isn’t my choice. Don’t you dare tell me you know better than me because you don’t.”

“Is this your way of selling my on your fucking organization?”

“No, this might do better.” In a flash, my hand was pierced by a knife, pinning it into the metal. She grabbed the vial from the air as my grip released, sticking her tongue out and walking away. In a fit of rage, which did not come often, I pulled the knife from my hand and tossed it at the woman. She gave a slight turn and caught it from the air and gave it a little flourishing toss before pocketing it, “It’s funny how unpredictable you think you are.” She sneered, leaning against the wall, “You know what, fuck it.” In a bout of… let’s think it overconfidence, she smashed the vial of poison into the ground. A faint green mist began to fill the room and it only took moments for the guards to fall to their knees, losing any lunch they might have held otherwise. The woman looked me dead in the eyes, letting the sick fall from her mouth without flinching, without falling over. I wretched myself, knowing I had no immunity to this shit, empty stomach or not. A few drops of bile hit the ground, nothing more.

“Is it clear now that I ain’t no bitch to fuck with?” She said, walking to me and gripping onto my hair, “I’m not trying to be your enemy, but I have every right by every fucking government of the world. It isn’t just the alchemy we know about. The child abduction, several counts of murder, the incident on the USS Valorou-”

“Cunt!” A few more wretches as I fell forward slightly.

“You’re a weak man, in the end. We know how you work. Put a gun to your head and you’ll dance like a puppet, there is no reason that a man like you should be allowed free in the world.”

I sat up, shaking a little bit, “Excuse me… is fearing for my own death meant to be a weakness?! Fuck you!… I know what the fuck I am and I know that there isn’t a man on this world who can do the shit I do… And if there is, God help us. Despite what you all thing, I’m actually trying to help people. I’m trying to make this world better. But tools aren’t cheap… Keeping an orphan girl in an isolated location well fed and educated isn’t cheap. Privacy, is not cheap and I don’t give a shit what your morality says about it.”

“We are offering you all this… Payment, safety, privacy…”

“All I have to do is be your puppet then? Papa don’t dance, hon.”

“We know that papa, in fact, does dance.” She leaned down, inspecting the wound on my hand, “It’s a little weird that you have such a high pain threshold, but throwing up stumps you…”

“I… I really don’t like throwing up while sober.”

“What’s it gonna be, Max?”

“Is there really a choice?”

“You know there is, its how you take this that makes it a choice.”

“I’m not taking any…. Dumbass oaths or that shit.”

“… I just want to know if you actually want to help people or if you’re full of shit.”

21, January 1992

I sat against the wall of the Applebee’s twirling my gun about a little bit. I could almost feel the eyes of the staff nervously looking about, threatening to call the cops. If their manager hadn’t told them to just not, the sweet-ass badge around my neck would really put them in their place:

‘Dr. Ovan Maxwell

Sentai Associate, Rank 5, Medical’

Id have to shoot an old Republican’s wife for the government to give a shit what I did in public.

Eventually, one of the employees came out, a shocked look on her face. I set my gun away, of course, no reason to startle this young thing any more than she already was. She was a bit on the chubby side, but nice skin. Thick red hair, flat nose and not nearly paid enough for the bullshit she went through. The plastic wrap that covered the newly broken window behind us accented this strange incident well.

“Are you supposed to be… The doctor?” The young woman asked. Damn and I thought I wasn’t going to be a massive prick this morning. I gave a look over my white medical coat and grabbed my badge pressing it much closer to my face than I needed to in order to read it.

“I sure as fuck hope so. Gonna pay fuckin bills for the rest of my life for it.” The mortified look on her face screamed that she was not appreciating my propensity to use fucking vulgar language, “Shit, sorry. Yes. Dr. Maxwell, head of Xeno and Cryptobilogy .”

“… I… Isnt there film of the thing?” The girl squeaked out, almost begging to be rid of me. I chuckled a tad bit kicking my foot up to the wall. Why would I ever promise myself not to be a prick?

“The creature you encountered cannot be processed by man-made instruments. Photography, film, processed mirro-”

“Like a vampire?”

“No… No no. Vampires will send their sex-tapes en-mass as a joke.” I explained, remembering to eject a tape from my VCR before Raquel got back, “This is a primordial being, shit that… sorry, ill cut down on the language, you’re clearly…” I hung there a bit, trying to think of the word. She gave a shake of her head that begged me to continue, but I shrugged it off, “The kind of thing that has existed from the beginning of the world, attempting to oppose man.”

“It ate my boyfriend…”

“Daaaaaaaaaamn.” I replied awkwardly, pushing my foot forward. It occurred to me this might be seen as insensitive, so I put a gentle hand on her shoulder, “We’ll take care of this… Really… Tell me everything about this creature and we’ll get it dead for you.” I hated to make false guarantees like that, but it was the only way to get through this, “Tell me everything you can about this thing… The more you give, the sooner we can get you a corpse.” There was no getting samples of this creature later on, I knew that. My fiance had nasty habit of making… messy corpses.

She sputtered off a string of descriptions, struggling to explain the thing. Asymmetrical, all teeth and bark-like in flesh. Like a tree and a piranha fucked, by the sound of it, “Yeah, that’s what I thought… How big was it?” I asked, keeping a more stern gaze.

“It was twice my size! Huge! Like… Ten feet tall!” She cried out, going into hysterics.

“Good… Good… That means that its still rather small.”

 

 

I called up Raquel after the event and the creature was destroyed in a massive flourish. I send the woman a private email to let her know about it before the news could. Didn’t want to step near that Applebee’s again. With privacy came the realization that we could have missed that creature, it could have just kept killing until it decided to crawl up whatever ass of nature shat him out. With that came the longest fear: the fear that the world would one day be full of monsters that we couldn’t predict.