BangoSkank

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Tell me I did a good job. Give me a gold star.

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Captain America / Nuke

Frank Simpson, Age 25 (b. 1942)
_{Deployed in Vietnam
Active since approximately 1960}

Character Concept

---

Frank Simpson has more in common with the Vietcong than with half of the men in this Army. They're wild sometimes, howling at the moon. They're wily sometimes with their foxholes and their punji pits. Not like half of the sadsack fucks he gets sent out with. Americans forced into service. Forced into service. Vietcong ain't forced into fucking shit. These boys are out here fighting like goddam lions. These Vietcong make for one hell of an enemy, it is almost a shame he has to kill them. It is almost a shame he has to kill every last god damn Vietcong in Vietnam until the job is done and America is safe. Hell someone has to do it don't they? Who better?

This is Frank Simpson's war. These are the enemy. These are the battlefields. It's a hell of a goddamned thing. He calls himself Nuke, at least he used to. Brass didn't like it. Said it was problematic. Doesn't matter. He's going to end this war the same way the Nukes did. He started calling himself Captain America. Maybe the brass didn't like that either but goddam if the men didn't love it. His men. Oorah.

My concept with this character is largely to contrast with the 1950s ethos, world view, and upbringing of Steve Rogers' Captain America. Steve Rogers' Captain America has a very rose tinted nostalgic view of what America is, was, and will be. Though that may change. Frank Simpsons' Captain America has a much more jaded view on these things. They have many stark differences and many similarities they are not aware of.

I want to explore how Frank Simpson sees things based on his upbringing and experiences both in life prior to Vietnam and in actually fighting in it. He will have his own perspective on Steve Rogers' Captain America and vice versa, hopefully leading up to an eventual direct confrontation. In regard to America's and Captain America's role in a war, role globally, and role in peacetime they will be largely diametrically opposed.

Part of these differences are due to upbringing and experiences and part of it is due to maturity.

Where Steve Rogers' Captain America is at his core a good man trying to do the right thing and protect all Americans Frank Simpsons' Captain America is a man who has been preparing for war all his life and is now in the thick of it. I want Frank Simpsons' Captain America to be essentially the villain at least for awhile. I haven't quite determined if he will be even partially redeemed, but I want him to be a villain with some positive characteristics rather than a caricature. He will have some stances that are laudable, maybe even some things he is better with than Steve Rogers, but he is a troubled violent man.

I am not quite sure how or if we will address race, sex, and class issues in this, but Simpson will be essentially Animal Mother from FMJ in those regards. From the end of the movie not the earlier bits. He's a little crude, he's a bit of an ass. He's not a racist. He's a pig but not a sexist. He's poor and resents the wealthy, particularly the pukes who have dodged the draft.

Arc 1 : Steve Rogers in San Francisco, trying to figure out who and what he is now. Talking with Dum Dum Duggan and other veterans. Learning about America in the 60s. Frank Simpson in Vietnam, enjoying what he's doing and forming his own opinions about war.

Depending on what happens with events and connected characters I might change future Arcs but I'm thinking...

Arc 2 : Steve Rogers is getting involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. matters and past evils, learning about Frank Simpson, Vietnam, Civil Rights issues, Veterans in general and Communism. Frank Simpson is more fully involved in Vietnam, becoming an independent actor in addition to his more traditional role.

Arc 3 : Steve Rogers is putting things together involving corruption and the legacy of WW2. Frank Simpson is heading toward a clash with Steve Rogers. Trying to find out why.

Key Notes

---

Name : Frank Simpson
Alias : Captain America, Nuke, Meo Hoang
Birth : 1942, Texas
Mother : Deceased, Access by Special Request Only
Father : Deceased, Access by Special Request Only
Enlistment : 1960

Sample Post

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Vietnam
December 31st 1967

Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. You heard right. Vietnam is hot. It's muggy. It smells different. It looks different. That don't mean everything is different though. People are still people and fuck yes New Years Eve is still New Years Eve.

The last day of December 1967 and goddam if we weren't still riding high off Tam Quan. This shit was what we here for. This shit was one hundred percent the shit that I was here for. Every single one of us who was here to be here had gotten some this December and after we got done getting some and we got back to what passes for civilization out here you know god damn well we got some. If you weren't getting it from someone in your unit you were getting it somewhere. All of it. Sex, booze, smokes, weed, acid, speed, uppers, downers, zips, zooms, and whamwhams.

We'd been just been walking the fences since then. Baking in the sun. Sharing stories and bodily fluids with each other. Training together, talking shit together, playing cards together, listening to music together, killing time in the armpit of the world man, together. There were so many of us, it was so goddamned hot, and we were all still so pepped up on Tam Quan. That was where I met Betsy. Fucking Betsy man. Thinking about her gets me antsy again. Ooo wee.

See December had jumped off quick. Word came down in the tail end of November that Intelligence had heard the PAVN or Vietcong or LASV or some group was heading on down to Bong Son so we were ready. We were itching. PAVN, LASV, Vietcong, those are all just slight variations on enemy. Sure enough in the first few days of December they headed down Highway 1 and started moving on our boys, that's ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The good guys, second place anyway. America is Number One and all that shit. So that's how it started, the Battle of Tam Quan.

December 6th and they send the 9th Cav in to investigate. They're pinned down quick so they call in the 8th Cav and they send me with 'em. Goddamned Captain America shit here we go. Hey bartender get me a beer yeah? Whatever you got. Yeah that's right I drink this shit. It's beer man. No. Fuck no they ain't gonna poison me, I'm a regular customer and these are friendlies. Plus I'm just too damn good. Look at me. Just look at me.

You know how we do it. 1725 Hours they tell us to go. 1800 Hours my feet hit the street and I've got a new dancing partner. Helicopter crew was worried, they smelled it so they hooked me up with my girl. Betsy. You know where Betsy came from brother? Goddamned General Electric. No I'm not kidding. General Electric. This sweet piece of ass is a scaled down M61 Vulcan. She can put out 4,000 a minute before she overheats. That's more than your mom. Goddamn, right?

So like I was saying. 1800 Hours we're landed, by 2100 we've got the 9th Cav on their way out and we're setting up perimeter. Betsy wanted to dance. You should really see us go. We do a mean Mashed Potato.

What happened next? Yeah, sure I'll tell yeah. Let me just get a drink. Long story. Shit gets real you know? You want one? I got you mamasan, it's no problem.

Bibleman Inc. (The RP!!!)

I'm kinda doing a vote thing. We may end up doing a sort of mix of things. So far A has been more popular.

Depending on what you have in mind for demons maybe. It's kind of an episodic collaborative fan fiction kinda thing. Check out Chick Tracts as that was pretty much the idea for that approach. If demons are in they're in more like Goldar from Power Rangers or as a nebulous outside force...like...jesus christ im going to say this...like The Klaw from Inspector Gadget.

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San Francisco, California
9:48 PM, December 31st 1967

---

Timely.

I always tried to be timely. The military drilled that in to me, but even before all of that it was something that mattered to me. I learned early on you couldn't control it, there were too many variables, all you could do was try to be prepared when things shifted. I wasn't ready when pneumonia took my mother. I disappeared into comics, decided I would be an artist. I wasn't ready when the war came to America. God I was so skinny then. I had no idea what I was getting in to. None of us did. We couldn't have. I was timely though.

My recruiter, when I got rejected for being underage and so damn skinny, he had a motivational poster taped up in that cheap little cubicle on the white turning yellow walls. I can almost see it now. A nature scene, for some reason. I never got that. I did get the message. It put things into words better than I could. It said that Luck was the Intersection of Preparation and Opportunity. I like to think I've been prepared. I like to think I've been timely.

You probably wouldn't believe how timely. Or how lucky.

"So then," the grizzled old man across the bar locked eyes with me and interrupted me from my reverie, "You gonna just keep staring at that mug or are you going to tell me about your day?"

I was distracted, lost in more ways than one, looking back into a once familiar face. Jesus Christ.

"It helps you know," Duggan said as he poured some good whiskey in an old mug and slid it over to me, "We don't talk."

"Irishmen?" I replied over my mug.

"Oh absolutely lad. Especially us Irish. But any of us really. You know how long it took me to get some of these fuckers to talk? That shit it don't come natural, after what we've seen, what we've done. You don't want to remember, you don't want to put that on your brothers. Don't want their sympathy, don't want their pity. None of us do, but you said you'd talk Rogers. It's New Years, it's what we do."

"I was never much for talking about the past. About memories. You know, all those years, it was action. All movement, all action, just one thing after another. Go, go, go."

"Yeah," my suddenly old buddy Dum Dum Duggan replied, with a loud unhealthy sounding exhale "I remember that, remember it better than most. Maybe more than anyone left, but for some of us memories is all we got left. Memories, this shit little bar, and now you Steve. A long lost friend come back. You owe it to us. That day, your day, our day."

"It's a hell of a thing."

Old Dum Dum looked back at me, 23 years older than when I had last seen him. He had been a tank of a man, where had it all gone. Years on years, and it had all been just a few weeks ago. For me. It was a hell of a thing. How one day can change your world.

One Day

---

It was hard to breathe. You couldn't catch the air. Not here. I was somewhere around 38,000 feet, moving at nearly 400 miles an hour, I was 26 years old, I was a soldier, I was Captain America, and I was scared to death. It was April 14, 1945. In Italy the US Fifth Army was launching it's final offensive in Italy, moving into the Po Valley. High over the North Atlantic my pilot and I were dying and we knew it. It was happening again.

My pilot was 23 years old, from Irvine California, he was allergic to grapes and engaged to the daughter of an architect. Her name was Maggie McMurray, his name was Adam Koslik. We called him Tight Pants because he showed up on Day One in pants that had shrunk in the wash. His pants were tight. He was Jewish, she was an atheist. She was pregnant with a son, Michael after his Uncle. They wanted to keep it quiet until after the wedding to avoid the shame. They wanted a sister for Michael, Evangeline for her grandmother. Probably would have been invited to the bar-mitzvah and bat-mitzvah. He was shot once in the left lung and once through the right shoulder. The plane was smoking, jittering. We were at 27,000 feet now and still coming in right about 400 miles an hour. Still hard to breathe.

Hard to catch the air when you're going that fast. Hard to breathe when every breath hurts. Hard to control the yoke with a bullet in your shoulder and blood filling your lungs but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. We were both young men, we were both about to die, and there was nothing anyone was going to be able to do to save us. I was losing another friend, another brother. Bucky had been lost over the English Channel only a few months ago. I had never really processed that and now Tight Pants, and me with him. It was happening again.

We said the Lord's Prayer together through shuddering breaths as the instrument panel lit up and screeched meaningless warnings to us, I placed my hand on his shoulder, and a moment later the shaking intensified as the plane began to fall apart and we were lost to the skies and the frigid seas.

When I look back now those few minutes with Tight Pants took longer than the next 23 years. I could tell you all kinds of things about the cockpit of that fighter in those few minutes.

Tight Pant's shampoo smelled like apples. His deodorant smelled like that terrible chemically standard issue deodorant because that is exactly what it was. I had a rock in my boot. I still had a blown out blood vessel in my left arm from working out on base. That photo of his wife and him in San Francisco had come untaped and got sucked out the window. A piece of bread launched up from the floor as Tight Pants fought valiantly to save us. Muttering to pull through the pain and it would have had to hurt something fierce with that hole in his shoulder. Tight Pants had been eating in here. Wasn't supposed to. Probably wanted to eat with Maggie. I would have to reprimand him some other time.

All I could tell you about my experiences the last twenty years is that it was cold. Probably.

I woke up on a Japanese ship, the Ishii. I was under enemy control, they had put some serious research into what freezing conditions do to a human body. How to bring them back. It had been 23 years. They weren't the enemy anymore. They did their best for us. Their best wasn't enough to save Adam Koslik. That might have been because he had been hit twice by bullets that had somehow missed me. It might have been because of what Operation Rebirth had done to me. We had been dead for 23 years. We had been dead as long as Tight Pants had been alive and he still was. Adam was still dead. Bucky was still dead. Not me, not old Blondie. I was reborn. Again. Tight Pants and I, we had been found, but I would come to find I was still very much lost.

San Francisco, California
10:18 PM, December 31st 1967

---

"You said Adam Kauslic?"

"Yeah," I replied pressing my fingertips into my temples.

Dum Dum pulled out a notebook and started scribbling.

"You said..."

"Adam Koslik, K-O-S-L-I-K, Tight Pants from Irvine. He was 23 years old. Engaged to Maggie McMurray, son on the way, Michael."

I took another drink. I needed it, and as I turned to Dum Dum to ask about all this I found him already pouring more into my mug and he started speaking.

"This woman, her husband is missing in action in Vietnam. Commander Hoff. We're doing a thing. Well she's doing it and I'm aiming to help. Take a look at that mug."

It had a small black and white flag. Said POW MIA in a banner above a bowed head.

"That's going to be big for the family. What about the body?"

I told him the body had been sent back with me. Tight Pants and I had taken one last flight together. He was back in America, should be on the way home by now. He told me how much this was going to help. How it would bring closure.

I downed the mug.

"Survivor's guilt." He said, pouring into my mug once more but not quite so full.

"It's different. I'm different."

"No," he replied surprisingly forcefully, "No you aren't Steve. Not in this."

"Sure I am. You were one of the few who could keep up with me Dum Dum. They-"

"I know what they did Steven. That doesn't have shit to do with this."

I tried to respond again. It was different. Luck. Timeliness. Preferential treatment. I was Captain America. When I tried to protest more he interrupted me.

"That's survivor's guilt Rogers. That is what. it. is. Everyone has got reasons they think it's different for them. We all got something we feel guilty for. Someone we feel guilty about. We're survivors. Survivor's guilt."

I looked around. Got about half nods and half folks hiding their faces. I turned back.

"No Steve, take a good hard look."

I did. I was younger than most of them. I was in much better shape than most of them. I was intact. I was alive. Unscarred.

"We're The Leftovers Rogers," he said while I looked.

"You're a Leftover too." he said. Then he told me how he became a Leftover.

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Captain America

Steve Rogers, Age 25 (48) (b. 1920)
_{Based in San Francisco, California
Active since approximately 1941}

Character Concept

---

For the world the end of the Great War was some 23 years ago. The ways of that world are already becoming things of occasional nostalgia and occasional disdain. They were quaint times, story book times, to many now who never lived through them. The past is viewed through the prism of the present. To Steve Rogers, sputtering and shivering to life in a land he was at war with, seemingly, yesterday the world has gone through this extensive change in no time at all. Yesterday was April 27th 1945 and then suddenly today was December 2nd 1967. Today today is December 31st, 1967 and Steve Rogers is due to meet with a group of men who may better understand what he is going through.

My concept is a slightly different spin of the 1960s Captain America, that is the Captain America still grieving Bucky's loss and trying to find his way in the world. Potentially working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and encountering Nick Fury again. Rather than Nixon bringing on the "Nomad" character later on I intend to have Steve Roger's in roughly that spot now, having woken to a very different America in a very different time.

I want to explore what Captain America means in so much as what America means to Steve Roger's Captain America and to Frank Simpson's Captain America who is in a very different position. What this means in Vietnam, what Captain America's role in a war should be, what America's role in the world should be, and what Captain America's role should be in peace time.

A man who grew up in a time when the entirety of Western Civilization seemed to be in danger of being destroyed and being replaced with an ugly war machine pushed ever forward by an ugly ideology now finds himself in a world where things do not seem so clear. There is not so obvious an other that must be beaten. America is not so clearly a force for great good, she is not so surrounded by Allies, it is not so easy to say she is in the right. So where does that leave Captain America.

Arc 1 : Steve Rogers in San Francisco, trying to figure out who and what he is now. Talking with Dum Dum Duggan and other veterans. Learning about America in the 60s. Frank Simpson in Vietnam, enjoying what he's doing and forming his own opinions about war.

Depending on what happens with events and connected characters I might change future Arcs but I'm thinking...

Arc 2 : Steve Rogers is getting involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. matters and past evils, learning about Frank Simpson, Vietnam, Civil Rights issues, Veterans in general and Communism. Frank Simpson is more fully involved in Vietnam, becoming an independent actor in addition to his more traditional role.

Arc 3 : Steve Rogers is putting things together involving corruption and the legacy of WW2. Frank Simpson is heading toward a clash with Steve Rogers. Trying to find out why.

Key Notes

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Classified

Name : Steve Rogers
Alias : Captain America
Birth : 1920, New York
Mother : Deceased, in Rogers' early child
Father : Deceased, in Rogers' teenage years
Enlistment : 1940

Important Dates :
- 1939 Major George Barnes KIA during training, Camp Leigh
- 1941 Bucky Barnes joins Steve Rogers in combat
- 1945 February, Bucky Barnes lost over English Channel
- 1945 April, Steve Rogers lost over North Atlantic Ocean

M.I.A. : April 14, 1945
Resurfaced : Classified - Need to Know

Supporting Characters:

Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan
Boston Born and Bred. Circus strongman. British Army. Howling Commando. Semi-Retired. S.H.I.E.L.D.
Runs a bar in San Francisco CA catering to Veterans.

Frank "Nuke or The Captain America of Vietnam" Simpson
Born in Ohio. Parents murdered by short ugly government agent. Raised for the military.
In his element in Vietnam.

Isaiah Green
Assistant Gunner to Frank Simpson. Tactically minded. Not much good behind a barrel.
Watching Frank Simpson's back through the Vietnam War.

Brock Rumlow
Mercenary. Showman. Goddamned Killer.
Killing.

Sample Post

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San Francisco, California
9:48 PM, December 31st 1967

Timely.

I always tried to be timely. The military drilled that in to me, but even before all of that it was something that mattered to me. I learned early on you couldn't control it, there were too many variables, all you could do was try to be prepared when things shifted. I wasn't ready when pneumonia took my mother. I disappeared into comics, decided I would be an artist. I wasn't ready when the war came to America. God I was so skinny then. I had no idea what I was getting in to. None of us did. We couldn't have. I was timely though.

Couldn't have known how timely.

"So," the grizzled old man across the bar locked eyes with me and interrupted from my reverie, "Tell me about your day?"

I was distracted, lost in more ways than one, looking back into a once familiar face. Jesus Christ.

"It helps you know," Duggan said as he poured some good whiskey in an old glass and slid it over to me, "We don't talk."

"Irishmen?" I replied over my cup.

"Any of us. You know how long it took me to get some of these fuckers to talk? The shit don't come natural, after what we've seen, what we've done. You don't want to remember, you don't want to put that on your brothers. Don't want their sympathy, don't want their pity. None of us do, but you said you'd talk Rogers. It's New Years, it's what we do."

"I was never much for talking about the past. About memories. You know, all those years, it was action. All movement, all action, just one thing after another. Go, go, go."

"Yeah," my suddenly old buddy Dum Dum Duggan replied, with a loud unhealthy sounding exhale "I remember that, remember it better than most. Maybe more than anyone left, but for some of us memories is all we got left. Memories, this shit little bar, and now you Steve. A long lost friend come back. You owe it to us. Your day."

"It's a hell of a thing."

Old Dum Dum looked back at me, 23 years older than when I had last seen him. He had been a tank of a man, where had it all gone. Years on years, and it had all been just a few weeks ago. For me. It was a hell of a thing. How one day can change your world.

What ideas have you backed off from, recently or otherwise?

@Andreyich

I love all those ideas, Deadlands is basically that first idea just in the Wild West instead of Renaissance Europe

Can You Call Yourself an Advanced Writer if You Only Write Female Characters? -Closed-

You say Closed, yet I can still post. I have surpassed all limitations. I cannot be restrained. My power has become inescapable. Feel my wrath. Tremble at my magnificence. Other stuff.

Can You Call Yourself an Advanced Writer if You Only Write Female Characters? -Closed-

Precisely, and there is a lot of interplay between the different levels.

Hence the whole "High Casual" and "Elite High Casual Mk. III" jokes. A lot of folks who can write at an "Advanced" level but prefer to stay in Casual or Free because the lower standards generate lower stress and therefore have a lot more participants.

Being an Advanced writer is great, but if you only put together a post a few times a year you may be more Advanced but are you as much a writer as someone who posts in Casual or Free on a weekly basis? And what does it really matter.

Bibleman Inc. (The RP!!!)

So I may have made a mistake last night drinking beers and eating Oreos, but now I have a stupid idea and by god I am going to see it through. I have spoken with a few fellow degenerates in RPG adjacent Discords about this idea and gotten some interest so here it is.

Bibleman. That's right, goddamn Bibleman.



It's a pretty benign children's show for Christian kids. Basically Power Rangers meets Captain Planet except instead of saving the planet they're saving your immortal soul through the power of grape juice and salt crackers.

I've got two general ideas for it and am willing to go either way depending on how much interest both or either get.

Approach A

Cheese

Comical, goofy, cheesey Power Rangers type RP. Playing as Bibleman and his allies, or 90s Children Cartoon show villain versions of his enemies. The show is already pretty 90s Cartoon Show status but I would want to exaggerate that for giggles. This is basic versions of Christian or universal morality tales. They will get along well enough with representatives of other groups. They may be slightly ignorant, played for laughs at their expense as the other groups explain what they believe in Educational tones for the audience at home, but they will be respectful.

If we ever encounter actual challenging topics I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of actual theological discussions and arguments about the things that actually impact people. For the record my general stance is that of the actual bible and most religions or just decent people - that we are all sinners and should be addressing our own shit rather than pointing out what's going on in other's lives. If these things come up, and they mostly wont, we will use them as commentary on how difficult these questions can be by avoiding answering them.

ex.
Little Timmy : Bibleman, my friend Johnny says he likes boys. He says he likes them likes them like mommies and daddies like each other. What does the Bible say about that?
Bibleman : That's an excellent question Little Timmy, luckily it has a simple, clear, and concise answer; if you just turn to -
Announcer : Aaaaaaaaand that's all we have time for today folks. Turn to that same Bibleman Channel next week for another exciting adventure!!!

Depending on how people actually impacted by these kinds of situations feel about this we can either excise it entirely if they feel like a glib mention of the problem is worse than not mentioning it at all, or expand sections like this into a more obvious real issue that is occurring that Bibleman isn't or cannot address. Anyone actually in such a position feel free to message me how you feel about this idea.

Approach B

Edge

Bibleman meets Judge Dredd, as a parody of the Chick Tract.

This would be a Bibleman that reflects the worst parts of religion in general as often reflected in Chick Tracts. Rather than being an object lesson of what to do this would be an object lesson of what not to do. I'd still want it to be cheesey and avoid being actually preachy or needlessly edgy but some of that would be the joke. He would all but constantly be unaware of how his actions contradict established teachings to avoid him becoming just plainly the villan.

Think Rorshach from Watchmen or The Punisher, but it's Bibleman. In most situations it will be clear to participants that Bibleman is both in the wrong and not actually following Biblical, Abrahamic,Religious, or even Common Sense guidelines of what is appropriate. Where Approach A reflects the best in Monotheism or Theism in general Approach B reflects the pitfalls.

While Approach A is set in a Power Rangers-ified and Christian-ized versino of the 90s this is set in a Post Rapture grungy 90s Todd McFarlane/Rob Liefeld sort of world. Shotguns, fanny packs, molle webbing, capes, no visible feet, pouches goddamn everywhere. A is Power Rangers, B is closer to Preacher.

I am imagining participation in either approach as more of a collaborative post by post thing than a You Post, I Post thing. I'll make a Discord for it and we can work on each post. There are a decent number of canon characters that would likely be fun to use but we can also make stuff up.

Disclaimer : There will be no Halflings but there likely will be a midget in every episode.

Can You Call Yourself an Advanced Writer if You Only Write Female Characters? -Closed-

I do think shoehorning yourself limits your growth, but not like a brick wall more like a bottleneck.

If you only write as a specific sort of woman, or a specific sort of man, or only office romances, or only high school drama, or only dragon slaying muscle monster big dick/vagoo hero person, you're only experiencing a small slice of storytelling.

Halflings are the exception.

Advanced isn't all that big a hurdle. Someone in Advanced who can write women in fantasy incredibly well may be unable to write men or women in a science fiction setting. Or they may be able to write men/women in any setting "well" but they may all be gender/setting flipped versions of the exact same character they always write. However well they may write their one singular character that can get boring quick...but somewhere in the middle it becomes a more subjective quality/quantity question.