The MetaSchwa
Schwa and the Metaverse; Different Bodies, Same Soul
Ever since I was four years of age (in real life), I have existed in at least two universes.
When an author in our world writes a fiction story of any kind, it has been said that another universe is instantly created that centers around that literary work. Even if the story isn't actually written, but at least designed beyond one's own mind in any way, this is said to happen. Therefore, you may say that I am responsible for a whole multitude of universes-- each starring a Schwa of some kind... for over the years of my inquenchable creativity, stories have been written, games thought up, plots designed or roleplayed.
Thus, there is more than one Schwa. And this page reviews the history you have subconsciously been desperately waiting for; the History of the Essence of Schwa.
Let's get this party started.
1992 -- The "Power Hero" and the Legend of the Yellow Thunderbolts
This was so early, I hadn't yet started calling myself Schwa yet. In this fantasy, I was a "Power Hero", which, now that I think about it, was kinda like an android of sorts... I had robotic organs in addition to my normal ones, and because of that I could absorb solar energy and fire laser shots from my pointing finger like a gun. I could also form energy shields, shockwaves, etc. Almost always, the premise of the Power Hero adventures was raiding the evil Dr. Swa's fortress (the name Dr. Swa was thought up by Heather Wetherland in a fan-comic of me she once made), destroying robots up the wazoo, where there would always be a "final battle" with Dr. Swa in one of his big machines in the end. It was very Sonic the Hedgehog-esque, which is understandable because from ages 3 to 9, my life revolved around Sonic whether I liked it or not.
I had some, but not all, of the plot elements laid out. Kiwi, a Hawaiian scientist, was once caught in an energy tornado that appeared for no reason, and it made him the first Power Hero. From then on, he advertised surgery to allow others the same condition as himself, in order to recruit an army of fighters to fight the evil Dr. Swa. The Power Heroes were organized into "teams", 5 people each, always called "[color] [random thing]", consisting of 1 leader and 4 members. I was "Hunter, Power Hero, Leader of the Yellow Thunderbolt Team". Spiffy? Heh... Looking back, this plot reminds me of an acid-trip, but hey, I was four...
I had tried to design a variety of video-games about the Power Heroes on paper at one point. In the early stages, the main bad-guy was not Dr. Swa, but Alex, my little brother in real life... and coinsidentally he piloted the Egg-o-matic that Dr. Robotnik appeared in from Sonic the Hedgehog. When Heather introduced Dr. Swa, I switched to that, and my bro and I still look back on that and laugh hysterically. I even had an Instruction Manual for the never-designed game, made out of paper folded over and stapled at the folded end. My spelling was horrible, but I got much praise for my creativity.
1996 -- The Swordfighter
I was homeschooled for 2 years, starting after half of my 2nd Grade year had passed. At this time, Dad and I were into a computer game called "Castle of the Winds", a norse mythology-based, 1-player DnD spinoff that was simple in design yet quite addictive. He had a character named "Caw", who ended up so powerful in the end, his character could "mow" an Ancient Red Dragon without taking more than 12 damage. (He also killed the final boss in one hit, thanks to his stats and some amazing tactics.) I was used to using "HPH" as my default name for everything, standing for "Hunter Power Hero", but one day, without knowing what it meant, I started using the name "Schwa" for no real reason...
Now, in this game, you could use hand-to-hand combat as well as spells. My gaming style eventually further developed Schwa the Warrior... I would only use a sword in this game, never an axe or flail or whatever, and I loved to cast powerful Offensive Spells such as Fireball, Ball Lightning and Transmogrify Monster. So, eventually, when I started writing about Schwa as an adventuring swordfighter, he was a master swordsman who knew a few basic spells, such as Firebolt, Haste, etc. His sword was a platinum-lined, meteoric broadsword called Silver Thunder that only he could lift. In the few stories he actually appeared in, he referred to the blade as "having a mind of it's own", and was very close to his weapon, as if it were an actual living being. He was convinced that his blessed blade had a soul.
To this date, none of Schwa the Warrior's stories still exist.
1998 -- The Pokemon Trainer and the Legend of Sparky
I was around 10 years old at this time, and coincidentally, this is about the time when the Pokemon Fever wracked America... coincidentally, I say, because in the concept of Pokemon, you have to be 10 years of age to be allowed to train them. I immediately bought a Blue Version (GB) for myself and went to town in all the n00bness I could muster... ya know, training just your starter... It wasn't until much later that I decided I needed to take the game seriously. So I started a new game, choosing Bulbasaur, and carefully picking out an elite team; Venusaur, Raichu, Marowak, Ninetales, Fearow and Dragonite. (I didn't realize the many flaws of this team until yeeeeeeeeears later.) I leveled them all to anywhere from 76 to 93 before the cartridge got lost.
It wasn't long, therafter, that I started both writing and roleplaying some of the "adventures" that I as a trainer would have, creating a variation of the Pokemon World involving most elements from the show, the game, and "common sense" (i.e. how thing REALLY would go if Pokemon were real). This meant that, when I talked about the Pokemon World, I treated it with a lot of the same social politics as our own... There was crime, there was politics, nothing was ever COMPLETELY "happily ever after" like in the show, people and Pokemon actually DID die... I feel, if the anime show were just like I described it, it would greatly appeal to people my age instead of 10-year-olds.
And, in my described adventures, I was a trainer, with the same team I had in my Blue Version (even though by this time I owned a Silver Version, and later, a Sapphire version, a Leaf Green and an Emerald). However, Trainer Schwa was nothing like Ash from the anime (thank GOD)... He looked at, and respected, his Pokemon as warriors more than friends. He still believed in frendships between Pokemon, but he looked at the aspect of Pokemon Training as an ongoing war, each Trainer Battle a skirmish in the big picture. His heart was hard and he trusted nobody except his team of elites. He was like the real me in some senses-- not trusting, very competitive, not a team player, etcetera.
Later, it occured to me that I would need to describe how "I" became a Trainer. Here's my version; I lived in Viridian with my Uncle Nemo, a retired Trainer of curious origin, until one day, as I turned 10, he myseriously left in the middle of the night, and I was alone... I determined that, what that meant, was that it was his way of trusting me to start my legacy as a Trainer. But since I never had known my parents, my heart was hard, and I cared not to be affiliated with any town. I headed to Pallet, too late to obtain a starter from Oak this year... Sitting behind a shack near the Lab to think, I heard a voice inside the shack; it was Oak himself, mentioning to nobody that it was a shame to have to send the reject Bulbasaur to the Orange Islands to be studied... He walked out of the shack for some coffee, not noticing me. Seeing the window, I crept in, zoinked the Pokeball he hadn't packaged yet, and escaped. From then on, I teamed up with the starter Bulbasaur I stole to launch my legacy as a Trainer, naming it "Summers". We trusted each-other greatly, for we were both outcasts.
Sometime I may have the Trainer Schwa stories up here, since they're still being developed, even after all these years.
Also, "Sparky" was the name of my Raichu, my best fighter... It is said he can send an Onix flying with his main attack, and he attacks a lot like Sonic the Hedgehog.
1999 -- The Detective: Master of the Strange and Unusual
This one was developed in 6th Grade, as a result of the school assignments given by one of my 6th Grade teachers (the best person I've ever met), Mrs. Christine Sjogren! She'd crack up if she was reading this, but hey... What she did was a weekly Spelling List, and we were to write sentences for each word in any way we liked. Never satisfied with the bare minimum, I took it a step further and fashioned a story using all the Spelling words, one chapter a week. It was child's play, since I'm a "Wordisan" (Word Artisan)... Kept HER on her toes, though, not even in a bad way at that. ^,^ The story was about me getting hired by a botanist to isolate and capture a living plant that he accidentally created.
Again, in 7th Grade, I was to write a ***very stereotypical*** story about me getting hired by the Government to steal something. I modified the assignment without them knowing, just so I could be as creative as possible... and this resulted in me writing a long story about the Government hiring me to capture a Magma Elemental loose in a volcanically active mountain. I used the same character from my plant-story, still referred to as "me", and then it dawned on me... This Schwa was its own form as well. And thus, Schwa, Master of the Strange and Unusual, was born; a detective specializing in cases involving the supernatural.
The Detective appeared in four stories; a 3-page story and three 6-page stories. Looking back, they could've been heavily improved. And, since all those stories are now unavailable for eternity (due to obscure file format and the advancement of modern technology), I might go as far as re-writing the four stories and adding to the collection, reviving the Detective in one fell swoop. Look for them here, someday.
Detective Schwa never used weapons; only his wit, sometimes spy-gadgets, and occasionally he'd call upon a strange and unusual power himself. The cases he'd have to deal with involved psychic links, elementals, ghosts, posession, forbidden magic, disguised mythological beings, and many other things along the same lines. He had a supervisor that supplied him with his gadgets, named Saj, who was pretty myserious himself. His HQ was in a completely unreachable location, and he'd leave that place via Jetpack as instructed by Saj.
2003 -- The Psi Warrior and the Chronicles of the Assets
During the summer after my 9th Grade year, I discovered Online Roleplaying at this site, and at the time I seemed to have a fixation on psychic power. To roleplay with my new online friends, this character "wrote itself", and with it, so did an entire saga about a trinity of deities known as the Living Assets, an orginization of Holy-infused warriors known as the Psi Warriors, and the personal adventures of Psi Warrior Schwa and his friends, Allaura the Psi Warrior, Kaz the Yamathian and Yiusi the Oracle. I'm embarassed to say this, but the Psi Warrior actually started OUT as a Buster Beetle rancher of all things, WITH psychic power... I let it develop into something else by accident, and I was more than satisfied.
The Psi Warrior's adventures usually had nothing to do with each-other, but all centered around bringing some powerful demon or another into submission. Schwa could attack with Holy/Psychic-element energy blasts and 63 (I counted) Special Attacks (Techs) done in a very Anime/RPG-esque style. His most famous attack to date is Alpha Psibeam, where he draws an arc of energy with his two hands and sends the projectile at a target, which homes in for an almost sure hit. His Ultimate Attack (his strongest one that costs 2 "turns" to fully charge up) is called Alpha Gamma Omega, which is a combo; twin beams that cut Defense, followed by twin wisps that home in and paralyze, followed by a megaton blast 56 feet in diameter for ungodly damage. If you go to the site I put up, you can read all about Schwa and his friends, I guarantee it.
The Psi Warrior has made me many friends online, and even though I don't visit that site anymore I still try to keep in touch with them, especially Grey, who I was pretty close to. My other friends there are Dracoon (who is gone), Koneko, Forte.EXE, Jack Skellington (formerly CheesePie), and maybe some others I've left out.
2005 -- The Mage-Paladin and the Ongoing Adventures of ME
It was my first year of DO-IT college that caused me to fall in love with HTML code, and thus, this Web Site was born. And as the first page developed, so did the Schwa you've been reading about in his ongoing adventures on this site! This Schwa is a Mage-Paladin... A Paladin, that uses spells to fight instead of a sword.
The Mage-Paladin's adventures reflect the way I think the world should work-- exactly like an RPG. What one, though? The world that the Mage-Paladin lives in is a combination of every Anime and every RPG ever made, using elements from every video-game ever made. You could've probably saw MANY hidden references in Chapter 1... Megaman BN, Donkey Kong Country, Pokemon, Sonic the Hedgehog, even the Atari classic Pitfall was used. That's why this series is so special-- when people catch the hidden references, it surprises them with delight, and this series is all about the references.
Another reason I like this series is because of the fun I get to have with Macromedia Fireworks, since I edit a lot of my own pictures. Have you checked out Chapter 3 yet, with the Baltopuff? Both Akane the Miximon and Baloo the Heavy Swordsman are two sprites you will NEVER find elsewhere, for both of them are the work of me combining features of 2 to 4 other sprites and recoloring. I eat that stuff up. Then Fireworks can add the kinky background effects, and viola, there you have a cool header, avatar, or whatever. Working on the Mage-Paladin adventures works all aspects of my creativity, from writing, to research, to spriting and, of course, HTML in many aspects.
I plan to keep working on this series, but never apart from my Web Site. This Site is the only place you'll ever catch his future adventures. Look for him.
2006 -- The Sea Turkey
This form came about as I was introduced to the glory of MMORPGs, specifically Puzzle Pirates. Basically in this one, you make a Pirate character for yourself and do piratey stuff... Many agree it's way better than Runescape, but that's another story. So, I joined this game one day, made my character, and before I knew it I was writing stories about HIM, too...
The name "Sea Turkey" is due to the fact that my character on the game is supposed to be an old geezer. He has a huge beard, pale skin and his weapon is a Cane, for example. Because of his supposed age, he refers to himself as "this old sea-turkey" on many occasions, and he greets people with the phrase "Hakuna Matata" which means "No worries" in some tounge that Disney came up with ages ago... A cookie to guess the reference. =D The Sea Turkey is also refered to as "Admiral Schwa", "General Schwa", "Captain Schwa" and "Uncle Schwa" by his crewmates. He is the fearless leader of a pirate crew called "Schwa-Faction", and he is a Lord in his flag "Vidi-Vini-Vici".
His stories are a lot about his past, specifically:
- The disappearance of his father,
- How he got his Merchant Cutter, "The Psychic Koi",
- How he achieved his dream of becoming a Rumble Master,
...etcetera. And these stories are still under construction, so be patient.
On a last note, please remember that not all these Schwas are still "alive" anymore-- many will never be seen or heard from again. Such is what happens to many legends.
Any questions about any of these Schwas? Once again I have provided a Schwa's the Law button and its pet Text Field for you to slip me a quick E-mail with. Complaints are fine, as long as they (and ANY e-mail) are at least three lines, if you can help it. I hate spam; I get enough of that thanks to College. So... Here's your present, type away and Schwa's the Law me.