Below is an intro to what this post is, how it came to be, and what to expect below the cut-off.
If you just want to get to the power dissection, or it is to long winded for your taste, skip ahead after the cut-off to get straight to the content.
So I've been hyperfixated on Dispatch by AdHoc Studio's having played it to completion twice now, and I’ve been wanting to make something in the Dispatch universe, but nothing was standing out or holding my motivation. Until one night, when I was mindlessly scrolling through social media, waiting for exhaustion to finally kick in, an idea struck me. I was struck with an idea. “What if I took some of my favorite YouTuber/Streamer scrimblos and threw them into Dispatch with unique superpowers?” “Surely if I combine these two cool things together, it can only become better right?”
And so I immediately started drafting and scheming about potential abilities and themes to tie into each one.
At somepoint in the research phase, I decided I should also give them superhero names or aliases. I tried to make the names sound like something the guy might actually call themselves. I don't know if I succeeded in that aspect, but I still tried. I did my best to do research to back up how the powers and adaptations could work in the world of Dispatch, so they are grounded in some form of logic. If I got some facts or phrasing wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments. Oh also! While I am happy with the names I came up with for the Clooless 4, I'm not content with what I have for Smitty & Blarg. If anyone has suggestions that they are willing to share, please do!
Now, without further ado, here is the newest SND team!
Pezzy: Revenant
With the amount of horror games Pezzy plays, he deserved to be the horror monster for once. It's only fair, right? So I am giving him Ghost Physiology.
Ghost Physiology is just an umbrella term for a cluster of powers. Pezzy gets all the classic supernatural ghost powers: intangibility, flying, invisibility, telekinetics, and possession.
He has a "living" form and an "apparition" or full ghost form that he can switch between at will. He can always use his intangibility, but to access the rest of his abilities, he needs to be in his apparition form.
In his apparition form, Pezzy becomes a sort of gaseous or wispy figure that has a soft pink coloration. His aperition form maintains a humanoid shape, other than his legs becoming more of a long tapered off tail. His eyes lose their pupils and irises and instead take on a light foggy blue hue that glows in the dark. I also took inspiration from fanart I've seen for Pezzy, and I love it when they make his hair look like the fizzy bubbles that spill out of his soda can avatar. So his hair in apparition form takes on a similar appearance, this has no real reason other than aesthetic lol.
Puffer: Leviathan
This one came easy, man’s logo is literally a pufferfish, but that said it is also the one I did the most research on. Puffer's power is more of a hybrid nature, so not something that can be turned on or off. Poison is the main selling point of this power, specifically Tetrodotoxin which is what most wild pufferfish contain and causes paralysis and potentially death.
Unfortunately, the more I learned about pufferfish, the more I realized that the spines & poison (which, if we want to get into the nitty-gritty, he might not even be able to produce because it is directly linked to the fish's diet) are arguably the only selling point. After some thought I decided to throw in some shark traits as well, such as their sharp serrated teeth, durable/ resilient skin, and increased strength to give a more offensive nature. I didn’t want to add a lot of physical shark traits because I want the superpowers design to still have pufferfish and the most iconic or obvious feature.
It's very clear to onlookers that Puffer is a hybrid or some kind of mash-up of sea creature parts, with some very notable mutation features... A thick, sturdy tail covered in spines that is used both as a potential weapon and as propulsion in the water. There is a collapsible dorsal fin that trails up Puffer's spine while his back is covered in scales. In fact, his whole body is dotted with scales. Most prominently found on his neck, back, arms, hands, and feet. His forearms are littered with spiky pufferfish spines and are adorned with fins on the outer side of the limb that act like pectoral fins would on most fish. His hands have webbing between his fingers. On his neck, you can spot gills that can open and close like a valve, depending on the environment he is in. Lastly, and most subtail, he has serrated shark teeth that constantly regrow.
Matt: Blarg
Okay, so at first I wanted to give him an explosive power. The first idea was that he could spawn and leave camouflaged explosions that he could telepathically detonate at will.
But then I second-guessed myself and started thinking "well actually, Matt is more associated with frogs than explosions. He has/had frog plushes as merch, and they are featured on his Youtooz." So I pivoted to Frog.
I debated between what frog species Blarg would/ should be before stamping him as a Red-eyed Tree Frog. I could have made him a Japanese Tree Frog because of the species’ resistance to cold weather (Canada lol) or a Flying Frog, which can pivot and change direction mid-air. But the Red-eye was too visibly iconic to pass up.
Matt's frog traits mostly aid in his agility, allowing him to leap & jump long distances, along with climbing walls and clinging to ceilings. I wanted to make sure I gave Matt traits from some type of tree frog, so he could do such a thing. His limbs are identical to a tree frog's limbs, other than the fact that they are scaled up to human proportions and that his hands still have opposable thumbs.
Just for fun, I also gave him the extra eyelids that frogs have that allow them to see in water while still protecting their eyes.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of an alias I liked for him, so I kept his name the same. I did however come up with a possible catch phrase, and while it’s admittedly a little stupid, it made me laugh & I could hear it in his voice: “You about to kick the frucket!” 🐸
Smitty: Milk Man
I easily could have given Smitty foresight or precognition, seeing as he already has such power due to the amount of prediction complications he has... But instead, I made him slime because I thought it would be funny if his prediction prowess was just a coincidence and not his actual superpower.
Why slime? I wanted to tie in his cute little squishy milkbag avatar, but I didn't know at the time how I could tie milk into some kind of power, or how it could even be beneficial. So I went with slime as it retains the physical aspects I wanted to keep while also having potential to be adaptable.
Smitty can rearrange the slime his body is composed of, able to change both its shape and viscosity, making his power very flexible. He can transform his limbs into weapons, turn into a puddle to slip into vents or under doors, stretch abnormal lengths to reach objectives out of reach, literally bounce back after a huge drop, store small objects inside his body, and if part of him falls off, he can easily reabsorb the lost mass.
Smitty’s resting or default state is very human in appearance, but if you look closely, you’ll notice some abnormal traits. His “skin” is very thin in appearance, barely hiding the gooey material that he is composed of. He looks very washed out and pale, which contrasts with his eyes that remain a brilliant green like his milkbag avatar. He also doesn’t have hair, instead having some slime take the shape of hair so he doesn’t appear bald. The slime itself is white in color and opaque with a slight sheen.
Out of the six I made, Smitty's alias is my least favorite. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything good!!!
I could have just made his username his hero alias because Smitty's real name (to my knowledge) is Jaren, but it felt lazy and a little redundant to use his username as his alias because I already did that for Blarg. So I settled for Milk Man, having the mentality that "I would rather have it done than struggle to make it perfect." Although when comparing it to some of the other hero names in Dispatch, "Milk Man" isn't the most ludicrous idea. Somewhere in the SDN office, there is a hero canonically named "Big Chungus." So I feel atleast a little vindication.
Droid: Iron Spine
I could have made him a cyborg or an android but I wanted to do something different. So Droid has Ferrokinesis AKA Metal Bending. To incorporate a robotic/ cyborg aesthetic and ease of use, I gave him an iron skeleton. More accurately, his skeleton is coated with iron, so he still has bone marrow and bone cells.
Does this mean that he could technically be magnetic due to his metal bones? Yes! Does this also mean that I now have a headcannon that if he is magnetic, people like to stick silly magnets on him when he isn't paying attention? Yes! Pezzy would totally be the biggest offender and take full advantage of Droid's magnetism, much to his chagrin.
How Droid's bones are coated in iron can be left up to debate. You can go down the angst route… or you can say that he ate a lot of broccoli and beans growing up.
I also needed to give him some form of supernatural healing due to the fact that if he uses the metal in his body, it's going to come out in a Wolverine fashion.
So to prevent Droid from dying due to his own power, he gets an enhanced immune system and increased healing factors. The importance of this is so that open wounds will scab over quickly in an effort to prevent blood loss and decrease the chance of possible infections. This healing factor isn’t Deadpool’s level of regeneration though. Droid’s injuries will still need to be properly cleaned and bandaged, and if he loses a body part, such as an arm or a leg, that’s a wrap as his healing isn't enough in that factor.
Grizzy: Ursa Major
Bear... Just Bear...
In all seriousness, this was another mutation/power idea that came to me quickly but required research on a specific animal.
Grizzy's power is the easiest to explain. Simply, he can shapeshift into a Grizzly Bear; his bear form doesn't have any remarkable or abnormal features other than its sheer size.
For context, the height and weight for an average male grizzly are 7 to 8 feet when standing on their hindlegs and they weigh 400 to 600 pounds. Grizzy Bear is almost double that. His bear form is 11 feet tall and 800 pounds.
He is a big, burly boy!
Grizzly Bears are already super strong and surprisingly fast, and Grizzy’s bear form is no different.
Grizzly Bears can outrun humans, with records of bears reaching a top speed of 35 miles per hour. This top speed can only be maintained for a short period of time offten being displayed in sprints or chases, but still, you're going to be pinned before he even breaks a sweat. These bears also have a recorded average bite force of 1,200 PSI or pounds per square inch. That is more than enough force to break most bones in your body. Their bulk and sheer muscle massively contribute to their physical strength. I did struggle with finding a reliable source for how strong grizzly bears are exactly. According to a study done in 2006 by Montana State University, one grizzly bear is equal to about 2.5-5 humans in strength. It is theorized that if trained properly, they could be even stronger.
All that to say that Grizzy in bear form is an absolute tank and could possibly go toe to toe against Punch Up.
This took a lot longer than I originally intended, and became something a lot bigger. But I had fun! It's been a while since I've attempted to make such thorough character concepts. I struggled at times trying to find resources and facts to back up fictional powers, but I like applying logic and reason to my fictional or science fiction ideas. I feel lazy when my explanation for why X does Y is simply "just because." Yeah, there are some things that I can't fully explain with just physics and biology grounded purely in fact, but then in that case, I make up my own logical explanation for the world I'm working in.
If I continue to have motivation and ideas with these consepts I might make it into an AU. I have some smaller ideas that could bloom into headcannons or just little snippets of text, but I'd rather post about them when I have more than a few ideas and they are a little more fleshed out. Plus, I am a little tired. I dedicated a majority of my free time to creating possible powers and researching how they could feasibly work. Now that it's done, I'm going to do something recreational that doesn't require so many brain cells.
If you did like reading my ideas, please don't just scroll past. Interacting shows me that I didn't just make something fun for me, but that I also made something people are interested in, and gives me motivation to make and share more. I hope I’m not coming off as annoying or rude because I’ve never done this before. But even just seeing the few likes on the post I made that first mentioned this outlandish idea made me so happy! Every time I saw someone new leave a like gave me a boost of motivation & confidence.
Genuinely though, if you are reading this, I hope you have a good day or night, depending on your time zone, and thank you so much for indulging me with this silly idea that spawned in my head at 2 am.
This is gonna be a series of polls. Doing this because I've got a surgery tmw and then the recovery period, so I've gotta do something in the coming week.
I've tagged this superpowers, for anyone who comes here who isn't a worm person, the power ratings are described on the worm wiki.
First Question: How many power categories does the power fall into (I.e shaker brute etc.)
Q3: How powerful? Mid tier, rating 4-6. As this poll was done under a reblog, it may be neccesary to redo.
Q4: What type of Breaker? Fate Breaker. Benefits after you transform, consequences when you transform back. A focus on action and consequences.
Q5: What type of stranger? Tie between Warp and Nox. Runoff vote in another post
Q5.1 stranger vote runoff. The power is a warp stranger. (strangers who can avoid attacks, danger, or slip through defenses by way of bent rules, distortions, otherworldly details or disruptions in the standard rules. )
Q6: is the user mentally modified by their power? Yes, the power has imposed a delusion on its user.
Q7. Is the user physically modified by their power? Tie between no and minor mutation
Q7.1 runoff vote. Results - no mutation
Q8.
Power Ideas are as follows:
Some of these might not follow the warp stranger description perfectly, as it is a bit of a vague one, but we have tried our best.
I would like to credit an IRL friend and @twiggirlblogger for helping me come up with ideas. While we bounced ideas back and forth to improve the ideas, I have credited the ideas to the idea maker (I hope correctly).
These are all more breaker than stranger, but that's because warp stranger felt like an incidental stranger. I can't imagine pure warp stranger.
The fate Breaker part of the power is to be decided later.
Ideas:
4D form (IRL friend)
Breaker state transforms the user into a 4d object. In this state it can interact unusually with light and sound, ‘fold’ itself to sneak through objects, hide objects/people within itself and other such weird 4d shenanigans. It can avoid attacks by ‘bending’ in usual ways, for example. Also can be very disorienting to look at. May have other capabilities to be voted on in the future.
2D form (twiggirlblogger)
Breaker state transforms the users into a series of 2d images, sort of like a series of blinds. These can be ‘rotated’ and ‘twisted’. As a 2d being they have unusual interactions with everything and can become ‘invisible’ simply by being viewed from the side (have no depth, so nothing to interact with). May have other capabilities to be voted on in the future.
Temporal action displacement (me)
Breaker state allows for the users interactions with other things to be displaced in time. For example, they could punch a person, have no ‘effect’ of their action happen, and then it happen 30 seconds later. They can only be displaced in the duration of the transformation (i.e, they transform 2pm, turn back 5pm, can not displace actions before 2pm or past 5pm). Stranger rating comes form their ability to prevent interactions with other things that may give them away, displace their interaction with light (so the image of them doing the thing can occur at a different time) and displace the sounds they produce. Specifics of the limitations of the displacement, to be voted on later.
Temporal part displacement (twiggirlblogger)
Can send parts of themselves into the future. For example, they can send their arm into the future and have it punch a guy 5s later. When they do so, the specifics of what happen to the body part in the present is to be voted, but the current idreas are: it gets replaced by a region of warped time in the shape of whatevers missing. What that region does will vary by vote but maybe it sends things passing through it slightly back in time, slows time down in it etc; and it gets replaced by a region of warped space containing what will be in the space the arm got sent to in the future. I.e if the arm got send to a space that will be occupied by a big machine, it will get replaced by a limb made of metal and exposed wires. Still functions as a limb
Spatial hurricane (me)
Breaker state is a ring of warped space with an ‘eye’ in the centre, like a hurricane. The eye is safe, the ring is not, tearing and distorting anything non biological that goes through it, and severely disorienting and throwing out anything biological. The distortion bends light, hiding anything and everything within the ‘eye’. Moves by inchworming, shortening space in front and lengthening behind. Ideas for fate bvreaker limitations: Starts small but with much stronger ‘winds’, grows with either time or things entering it but the ‘winds’ get weaker. Stranger comes from it’s own dubious visibility and the ability to hide things within itself. This isn't a huge ring (to avoid a shaker rating). Further details to be voted on.
Delayed effects (me)
Similar to the time travel actions idea, when this parahuman is in the breaker state anything they do, any ‘cause’, has no effect, as does anything done to them. This once again, includes their interactions with light and sound. When they revert, everything that should have happened instantly does. Specifics to be voted on later.
Portal transformation (me)
User transforms into a mobile pocket dimension portal. The stranger rating is for similar reasons to the 4d object transformation option. Can store things within itself, largely/entirely resistant to damage, and spew things back out in any direction. Specifics to be voted on later.
Temporal Reversal (me)
Breaker form causes things it interacts with to revert backwards in time. This doesn’t send things backwards, but causes them to reverse, like you’ve clicked the reverse button on the remote. Stranger both due to the removal of any interaction with the world (footsteps reverse out of existence) but also because it works on humans and can be used to remove recent memories. Specifics of how long they get reversed for and other capabilities to be decided on vote.
Sensory swap (IRL friend)
In breaker form, any sensory stimuli produced is swapped into something else. For example, maybe any vision of the cape instead results in a smell, any smell becomes a sound, sound becomes a taste etc. How they are swapped is chosen by the cape when they transform, and they can, over time in the form, develop a charge they can use to swap around the swapped senses. Other capabilities, for example if we want the form to be weird, how the swapping exactly works etc, decided by vote later.
What should the power be?
I am not satisfied with any of these
4D form
2D form
Temporal Action Displacement
Temporal Part Displacement
Spatial 'Hurricane'
Delayed effects
Portal transformation
Temporal Reversal
Sensory Swap
Voting ended onOct 3, 2024
The next votes determine ancillary aspects (visuals, fate breaker aspects, some power specifics)
Q3: How powerful? Mid tier, rating 4-6. As this poll was done under a reblog, it may be neccesary to redo.
Man people love strangers eh? Don't blame you, it's the coolest power rating.
The next question:
What type of Breaker is this power?
So these are based off the information I could get off weaverdice. Truth be told, the info isn't complete (death breakers are the only ones with subcategories) and I may not have accurately interpreted the descriptions, but still this gives us good options as a framework.
Luckily these are easier to interpret than the stranger subcategories haha. (That's gonna be the next poll, if it isn't obvious)
Death breaker - from what I understand, your more classic breaker. Shifts into a form with a set of powers
Time breaker - transformation has some form of duration limit. Perhaps you only transform for 1m, or there's some kind of cost to the transformation that's higher the longer you're transformed.
Fate Breaker - strong emphasis on action and consequence. Big benefits when entering the form, consequences for leaving it.
War Breaker - big conflict drive. Breaker form is mostly offensive. Consequences if you transform without conflict.
Nature breaker - feed off the environment. May even need to tap into environment to transform. For example (to my understanding), they can only turn into fire if a fire is present or need to feed off fires to stay in a fire form.
Purity I believe is an example of this.
Hysteria breakers - severely altered mental state in the other form. May impact their normal form if they don't carefully manage it.
Morpheus breaker - state is fragile or has critical weak points, but has defensive and/or peripheral benefits, often using projections and space or reality warping
Tribulation breaker - severely disconnected from reality. Has trouble interacting with reality but also vice versa. Intangability, retreating into pocket dimensions etc.
Gasconade is a good example of how weird this can be. Permanently on breaker form that essentially undoes any action he takes after a short period.
Desire breaker - connected to people. May be a parasitic breaker form, may use emotions or similar things as fuel. Similar to a nature breaker.
Q3: How powerful? Mid tier, rating 4-6. As this poll was done under a reblog, it may be neccesary to redo.
Q4: What type of Breaker? Fate Breaker. Benefits after you transform, consequences when you transform back. A focus on action and consequences.
Q5: What type of stranger? Tie between Warp and Nox. Runoff vote in another post
Q5.1 stranger vote runoff. The power is a warp stranger. (strangers who can avoid attacks, danger, or slip through defenses by way of bent rules, distortions, otherworldly details or disruptions in the standard rules. )
Q6: is the user mentally modified by their power? Yes, the power has imposed a delusion on its user.
Q7. Is the user physically modified by their power? Tie between no and minor mutation
Q7.1 runoff vote. Results - no mutation
Q8. What is the power?
Breaker state transforms the user into a 4d object. In this state it can interact unusually with light and sound, ‘fold’ itself to sneak through objects, hide objects/people within itself and other such weird 4d shenanigans. It can avoid attacks by ‘bending’ in usual ways, for example. Also can be very disorienting to look at. May have other capabilities to be voted on in the future.
Q9. What is the benefit of transforming?
The transformation is severely disorienting to watch, in a manner the user can direct. Those afflicted may be afflicted enough to vomit, get extremely dizzy for a long period, etc. This allows for an easy ambush.
Q10. What are the consequences of transforming back?
Tie between Dimensional disorientation and Residual Transformation
Q11. What is the aesthetic of the Breaker form?
Tie between glass and static
Today's Votes
Q10.1 Tiebreaker
Q11.1 Tiebreaker
NEXT question will be about the nature of the power induced delusion. I've thought of 4 potentials so far, but some need more thought put in and I want at least one more option. Haven't had much time to think today.
Constrained world (believes 3d to be an artificial state, finds it confining and tight. Depending on users mindset may beleuve its only artificial for them or artificial for everyone)
(False) split personality (believes the 4d form to be a seperate individual, and so any actions performed in each form cannot be attributed to the other. They are not actually different individuals, power just prevents the mental link. Sortof believes they are in a hulk situation without actually being in one.)
Objectification (user essentially believes other people are objects, akin to p-zombies)
True form (user believes the 4d object is their real body. Results in a lot of recklessness with the human form)
I will accept suggestions
Not sure what other questions there even may be too add. Tbh, I think after the mental vote we will be done.
Unless people want to go further and design a cape around the power?
Q11.1 what is the aesthetic of the breaker form? Tiebreaker
Choices are
Glass - form resembles suspended glass
Static - form looks like it's made of TV static
Broken TV - form resembles suspended pieces of glass containing static, as if a TV screen shattered and kept the image.
Static Web - form resembles broken pieces of glass held together by strands of static.
