Meme (from the Mizfits)

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Meme (77)

Project: Comic (Mizfits)

Known as: Meme

Real name: Sebastian Church

Group affiliation: CounterAct

Physical description: Meme is sixty-seven but looks older. He is very thin, nearly bald, and wrinkled.

Personality: Meme is the opposite of his sister, Post. Extremely introverted, he is exhausted being around other people. He also has social anxiety and no people skills. When left alone, however, he is a talented artist and interior designer (of course, he does interior design under a pseudonym and avoids meeting clients directly).

Meme tends to follow strong personalities and is absolutely ruled by his sister Alexandria (Post).

History: Sebastian Church (Meme), like his sister (Post), was also born to a well-to-do Manhattan family (he was actually the first born). Unlike his sister, he was very much a homebody and felt more grateful that his family had a great home than that they lived in a great city. His family, other than his sister, indulged his hermit ways. Hiring teachers to homeschool him and getting whatever, he needed delivered, his family didn’t make him a complete recluse but did enable his natural tendencies.

Of course, his little sister did not understand his liking of loneliness. Minimally she would pester him when she was bored and occasionally make him go out with her. She legitimately loves him, while he considers her a force of nature to which he has to bow. Fortunately for him, she eventually found many distractions and would only go to him to bother him on principle. When her troubles arrived, her brother was a stalwart supporter. He actually hoped it would give her a new perspective in life and she would stop valuing the regard of others so much.

He was to be disappointed. She in fact was trying to encourage him to consume social media when the All Saint’s Anarchy hit (where Boost amplified Random’s powers and reality was altered). He ended up swallowing the radioactive bee that stung his sister. Although neither got bee powers, both got social media powers. Where his sister gains power from “likes,” he became a shapeshifter based upon memes (see below).

As an artist, he is mortified that his power involves him memorizing memes (which he considers the lowest form of art). He is still manipulated by, and feels responsibility for, his sister so he is also a part of CounterAct and feels he needs to be ready.

Role in the narrative: A reluctant antagonist. He represents a class of people who try to understand memes while disliking them.

Abilities: Meme’s power is unusual and somewhat unpredictable. Like his sister, he somehow taps into the mental energy of those who consume memes, but this gets expressed in a very different way. He is basically a shapeshifter, who can “become” any meme he has studied thoroughly and memorized. If the meme is associated with an image, he will become a replica of that image (e.g., a cat meme enables him to become a cat). Furthermore, if the theme of the meme is strong enough, he can also gain additional abilities in that form. For example, if he used the meme around a clown summoning people to a storm drain, he would become the clown and have the ability to draw people to him against their better judgment. Note that he will not get all the abilities of the fictional clown, just the one tied up in the meme.

He does have a number of limitations. First, the time he can stay in the alternate form is directly proportional for how long the meme was popular. Second, he can only become each meme once. Third, he must have a good knowledge, and understanding, of the meme and its form. Finally, as mentioned above the form will only have advanced abilities if the meaning of the meme was especially strong.

Inspirations: At this point I’m riffing on social-media inspired villains (my son referred to this one as “cringy,” which I took as a compliment). I was going to stop at two, but something he said gave me an idea for “Podcast” so watch for that one tomorrow. Shapeshifters are not new (hello Beast Boy) and superheroes are fantastic meme generators.