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Loon
Contest entries!


SECRET IDENTITY: Albert Saulteaux (given name)

AGE: 22

KNOWN RELATIVES: ?

TRIBAL AFFILIATION: Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, North Dakota

BASE OF OPERATIONS: Turtle Mountains (ND)

ORIGIN AND HISTORY: The loon was born on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation, and raised by his kookum and mushoom (grandmother and grandfather) in a small cabin back in the bush. The Loon identifies with his Anishinabe heritage, but also with his Mitchif (metis) heritage of French and Indians. The loon learned how to hunt, trap, and fish with expertise and can mimic several animal sounds with perfection. He is a member of the bear clan (the largest clan in the TM's!) and also goes by his given name of Albert Saulteaux. At an early age he was exposed to the deaths of his grandparents when some white men decided that they would like to take their allotted land from them through devious means. The loon escaped back further into the woods and became self-sufficient among the wild, and he has harbored a hatred for greed and deception since that time.

Kade Ferris

*****

Loon is Ojibwe from the James Bay area in Canada. His parents were exposed to the poisonous mercury in the bay, causing chromosomal damage. Loon was born with a terrible birth defect: no ears. Because he can't hear, he's immune to his own loon cry. He learned to to talk by reading lips.

This defect explains his anti-social behavior. As a toddler, he couldn't communicate normally, so he got his way by screaming and throwing tantrums. As he grew older, and people treated him lika a freak, he learned to identify with the outcasts and rebels in society, especially the hip-hop subculture. His background also makes him opposed to more toxic pollution.

Loon paints his face black with white dabs. He has large, glaring, round eyes and no ears. His hair is shaved on the sides, and he has snag braids like people in that region wear.

Lorri Carrico

*****

Hello Mr. Schmidt, I have thought about it for awhile... I see an unknown Chippewa spiritual teen prodigy who goes to sleep one night to awaken in a 'dreamworld' where cybernetic humans thrive. This youth is a great problem solver & secretly wants to use his great analytical thinking prowess to pursue pseudoscience to discover the unknown. He allows the beings to enh his inner form, so he can understand their high pitched electronic pitches. He soon questions his own beliefs which he championed so much and wonders if he even really believed in them. Soon, he has a confrontation with one particular child being who challenges him to a game of wit. He loses this game & his soul is split up into two identical energy parts that power up the winners' toy loon's. The Chippewa youth dispels this as a dream & asks for his soul back, but he awakens suddenly to see that he too has been altered somewhat like the beings in his dream. He can't talk no more & his soul has actually left his body. He recalls that the winner said that he had limited time to reclaim his soul in the waking world before he lost it forever & remained immortal forever incomplete. The winner transformed his toy into a real loon that flew off rapidly into the real world. Loon's mental & physical state are enhanced greatly due to his lack of a soul, but his strong faith's core departure has given him constant headaches & physical tension. He embraces hip-hop as a form of therapy to remain stable. They become his new powwow drums. He is quickly ostracized and cast away from his people due to his spiritual directions of N,E,S & W being unfocused & his phy/spiritual balance being off center. His 'loud sound' also damages crops that his people grow & they consider him cursed. He now see's tantric ( spiritual energy ) from all living things, including computers/electronic devices since he is a combo of both now. He must capture his soul in a pure undamaged form even though his voice rends allies & machines crazy/damaged. He knows that the loon is a trickster like Coyote and he is trying to figure out how to examine the world's 'souls' quickly without damaging them & his shot for being whole again.

Loon questions his own sanity, wondering if his culture was from this world or a figment of his imagination. He seeks out Peace Party to try to regain some inner 'natural peace', but it is a challenge. He recently started to 'act' like a loon bird, painting himself & following the migrating birds. His focus must be brought back up & he must remember that his soul is his goal, quite literally. His pogo stick also helps alleviate his bouncing ideas & skateboarding offers help too. Loon wonders if this is some kind of test. His family said that he forsake his spiritual wisdom & that his secret lust for tech has doomed him unless he comes back. He is questioning a possible atheistic approach which scares the hell out of him. He envies the Peace parties' quiet, humble ways. He tries to prove his worth by battling great supervillains & odds to bring the spotlight on him. He aides them occasionally and goes by the Objiway name of Manidoo which means spirit.

Powers: a electromagnetic sonic voice that can grab at living souls & computers/devices driving them to breakdown, post suggestive openness, electro build up for explosion, echoing lasting words/sounds he puts up in their head and it can be concentrated into a limited anti-order pulse that breaks down 'reality/order' albeit briefly. Also his lack of a soul enhances his physical sense & mental ( intellectual sense ).

I hope you can use some of this Mr.Schmidt. If it is too over the top, use it/break it down for enemies/supporting characters. Again thanx for this opportunity. I hope to hear from you soon.

E. Franklin Graham

*****

The black-and-white is based more precisely on loon coloring. The mostly-black was an early effort.

Is Loon immune to his own cry? [Yes.]

I liked the ideas of the first two entrants, regarding his name, and his hair and face-paint.

Juliet Fischer


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Original text and pictures © copyright 2007 by Robert Schmidt.

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