Crystalclear

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Crystalclear</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

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<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Crystalclear is an absent-minded Thinker attempting to make a new life for himself, along with uncountable others.<ref name="I2.II"/>

Personality

Crystalclear misses things, partially because of his powers, and partially because of how he approaches things. As a result he considers himself unintelligent.<ref name="I2.II e5"> - Excerpt from Interlude 2 II</ref>

He can mis-read social situations and talk unnecessarily.<ref name="II2.1 e2">“The cards and flowers might have something to do with how you’re the topic of the moment,” I mused aloud.

“I heard something about that,” Fume Hood said, indicating Crystalclear.

“From me,” Crystalclear volunteered unnecessarily.
[...]
“It’s good,” Tempera said. “I think Crystalclear already accepted the offer from Foresight, though.”

“It was a very promising offer.”

“And I’ve been contacted by Attendant. I don’t know what I’ll do with that. And Victoria-” - excerpt from Flare 2.2</ref>

Appearance

Crystalclear has shards of what appear to be glass or crystal jutting from his elbows, hands and face. Their appearance is described as somewhat beautiful. The chunks of crystal made up his entire upper face,<ref name="II1.2e1">There was a man in a deep purple tank top and skinny pants with glass jutting from his skin at the elbows and hands, his upper face only a craggy mass of glass or jewel-like shards sticking out of flesh, just beautiful enough to not be macabre. - excerpt from Daybreak 1.2</ref> replacing his nose, eyes, brow and scalp.<ref> I looked at the man with the glass chunks where his nose, eyes, brow and scalp should be. - excerpt from Daybreak 1.2</ref> The crystals were embedded deep enough that they should have penetrated his brain. He would sometimes pull the crystals out of his head.<ref>“They’ve got the eye thing, and the masks. One doesn’t have eyes at all,” he said. “He has these crystals. He pulled one out of the top of his head earlier, and it made a wet sound. It was in so deep it should’ve been inside his brain.” -

excerpt from Daybreak 1.3</ref> He can remove the crystals from his head, enough to reveal his blue eyes.<ref name="II1.6 e1">One of his eyes was exposed now, peering from between one chunk that grew from the bridge of his nose and one that grew from his temple, very blue. - excerpt from Daybreak 1.6</ref> As such he does not have the same crystal configuration day to day.<ref name="II2.1 e1">Crystalclear sat in the chair between her and the window, the crystal configuration on his head slightly different than before.  He wore a t-shirt and shorts.  There was something odd about a guy with crystals where his eyes and hair would be having very ordinary hairy legs. - excerpt from Flare 2.2</ref>

In his first "costume", he wore a deep purple tank-top,<ref name="II1.2e1" /> in keeping with the superhero-civilian wear aesthetic that his team used. After joining Foresight he wore the more individualized-armored-tunic-uniform that they did.<ref name="I2.II e1">“I like the costume,” Big Picture said.

Crystalclear touched the tunic portion of his outfit.

It wasn’t anything like he’d worn with the Norfair Neighborhood Heroes. A single shoulderpad, a piece of cloth forming a kind of shawl or mantle as it extended from one corner of the shoulderpad near his heart, over his shoulder, and around to the back corner of the shoulderpad near his shoulderblade. The shoulderpad, the armor at his wrists and the armor around his legs had chunks of crystal, closely matched to the crystal that he naturally produced. Lightweight as armor went, limited to a few pieces that were as decorative as functional, but it was still armor. A band of metal ran along his chin’s edge, and that took some particular getting used to.

“Appreciated,” Crystalclear said. It was odd to reply when he was only aware of the outlines of the outfit. He had seen it in the mirror when he had been getting ready, but that memory felt faint, and he had yet to see how put together he looked with the crystals at the upper half of his face. - Excerpt from Interlude 2 II</ref>

Abilities and Powers

Crystaclear has a blaster power that can travel through terrain.<ref name="II1.3e1"/> He would throw chunks of crystal that passed seamlessly through walls and the ground, then exploded out in a small detonation of gas, debris and crystalline fragments. The crystals seemingly homed in on their targets; for example, a crystal thrown into the ground would re-emerge beneath the target.<ref>Crystalclear threw a chunk of crystal at the ground, and the chunk passed through without sound or apparent impact.

[...]

Crystalclear’s shot passed through walls. Tempera had let me know that. Apparently, it needed to pass through walls, or the ground in this case. He’d thrown it into the ground, and a moment after Fume had released her two shots, both landing, Crystalclear’s shot emerged from the ground, an explosion of vapor, glass splinters, and fragments of road.

[...]

Something exploded overhead.

I looked up.

Vapor, shards of crystal.

A moment later, there were two more small explosions, one after another, in a line. - excerpt from Daybreak 1.4</ref>

Crystalclear saw through solid objects as if they were made of glass or transparent crystal,<ref name="II1.3e1" /> with edges and corners catching the light.<ref>“It’s hard to explain because it’s not a sense anyone else has. Say I was looking at a wall. It looks like a chunk of clear glass and the light catches at the edges and corners and they’re highlighted.” - excerpt from Daybreak 1.3</ref> Unmoving objects looked white-edged, while moving objects (such as people) looked blurred and diffracted, their white-edged present selves surrounded by red images of their past and blue images of their future.<ref>“The edges of walls and floor are usually clear, crisp, and closer to white. Solid objects don’t change, so there’s no reason for that to change. It’s blurred. Blue tinted.”

“Future sight,” Tempera added. “Past-sight is red, future-sight is blue. Like the doppler.”

Crystalclear went on, “In the future, that wall vibrates. Similar effect with people, but they move around more. I see you all as streaks, shifting around, white-edged where you’re resting in present.” - excerpt from Daybreak 1.3</ref> Humans were also surrounded by distortions in the light that represented their focus and emotions, with dramatic changes in focus resembling fractures in the crystal.<ref>"There is refraction and some fractures around people’s heads, representing focus and kind of thinking."

“That gets blueshifted redshifted?” I asked. “It’s not displayed as color?”

Crystalclear nodded his head. It was a motion made more weighty by the heavy growth at the top of his head. Not as color. It’s… edges to the light around them, sharpness and softness, distortions like how you can look at a glass of water with a straw in it and the straw isn’t straight, or you see multiple straws. The worst breaks in focus look like grooves or outright breaks. A lot of people here are going to be distorted soon. Or were. They’re leaving and they’re clearing up.” - Excerpt from Daybreak 1.3</ref>

He could see other colors beyond the red past and the blue future. Greens were also present.<ref name="I2.II e2">There was so much more to it, and he was learning more of it every week and month. The colors meant things, and he had only worked out the blues and the reds. Other colors separated from the white at times. There were a lot of greens in the crowd and along the station, pulling away from the outlines. He had ideas about what they meant, but he couldn’t say anything with confidence.

The fractures and formations in distortions around people were another part of it. There were elements to the way things broke up and distorted that had deeper meaning, things he didn’t understand in a way he could explain, but which made it easy for him to relate one personality and personality type to another, familiar one.

The portal took up much of the station in front of him. His multifaceted senses covered the tract of Gimel surrounding the portal, and the areas of Bet on the far side. His view encompassed the surroundings on the other side, the people, the terrain, and the different colors that bled out from the sharper white outlines. - Excerpt from Interlude 2 II</ref> He could shape the crystals he grows, and they do not interfere with brain function.<ref name="I2.II e3">He concentrated, and he produced another chunk of glass, feeling it stab from the underside of his eye and out, sliding through everything in the way without doing real damage. He was careful to shape it in his mind so there wouldn’t be any sharp edges resting against his eyelid or brow. - Excerpt from Interlude 2 II</ref>

History

Background

He was kidnapped as a child and raised by the kidnapper, he was also a deliverer of drugs for the kidnapper who presumably needed someone young enough to deliver packages unnoticed. He was raised not to ask questions. When he was finally caught on a delivery, now old enough to attract notice, he couldn't tell to the arresting authorities anything that could have lessened his culpability. Finding out the full scope of what happened to him faced with hostility from everyone including the now revealed kidnapper caused him to trigger.<ref name="I2.II e4">Crystalclear had a confused and fractured memory of his early childhood. The woman he remembered growing up with was not the woman he’d spent his late childhood and adolescence with. His aunt had explained the situation for him, saying his mother hadn’t been well, he’d been taken away from her for his safety.

She had said a lot of things over the years. He had believed most, and because other things had occupied his attention, he hadn’t given the remainder enough focus.

Normally, trigger events emphasizing isolation, loss, cut ties, and betrayal tended to lead to master powers. Or, rather, master powers tended to go to people who were going to deal with those situations.

Any attachment he had felt to his aunt had faded over the years, long before he had triggered. She hadn’t cared. So long as he behaved and didn’t cause a fuss, she had been happy to not have to devote much attention to him. There was nothing lost, so that aspect of things hadn’t factored in.

So, naturally, he had avoided causing a fuss.

It had only been later that their fragile reality had come crashing down around them. The police were closing in on him, he was no longer young, and where a young, clean cut white boy had flown under the radar, a teenaged white boy with pimples hadn’t. It had turned out that his aunt wasn’t his aunt at all. Her only relation to him was that she had stolen him from his real mother.

The questions had come, hours of interrogation, his lawyer guiding him. Hadn’t he put the pieces together? Hadn’t he seen? Why hadn’t he asked more questions? He hadn’t looked at what he was delivering to homes even once in the past few years?

No, he’d said. No, he’d never looked. He had never really considered. He had only wanted to exist.

The police had been upset, angry, hostile. His lawyer had been frustrated, because anything, anything at all could have led to a plea deal or him getting off free. His ‘aunt’ and her boyfriend were upset, because they blamed him for their being arrested, and they had used a proxy to threaten him.

He had been sufficiently scared and lost to trigger.

Now he stood guard. He was trying to exist, to do what good he could, and he wanted to pay a little more attention than he once had, even as his power made that very easy on the surface and very difficult when it came to the deeper analysis. - Excerpt from Interlude 2 II</ref>

Early Ward

Joined a superhero team and had a bad first day.

With his future sight he saw trouble and he alerted Tempera, who made the decision to call for assistance.

After the team fell apart, he received an offer from Foresight,<ref name="II2.1 e2"/> which he accepted.<ref name="I2.II">Interlude 2 II</ref>

Stood guard over the meeting with Earth Cheit diplomats and was then debriefed by Weld.

Helped stop a device that weaponizes portals from going off.<ref>Pitch 6.9</ref>

Post-Fallen fall

Got assigned in parahuman prison camp as an undercover agent.<ref>“Crystalclear is in the prison undercover,” Rain said. “Once I confirmed I knew you, he talked to his superiors, and they reached out to us. One subset of the Wardens.”

“They’re letting us know, but we’re not supposed to tell the other teams we’re working with,” Tristan said. - Excerpt from Beacon 8.8</ref>

Assisted Breakthrough with the Goddess situation, and was himself mastered by her.

Post-Goddess' Takeover

He and his team accompanied Breakthrough on their investigation of the Navigators' ambush. At the end of the another ambush he apprehended the enemy teleporter.<ref>Polarize 10.13</ref>

The Ice Breaks

Crystalclear was present during the battles against Simurgh.<ref name="II20.2">Last 20.2</ref>

Crystalclear received the parahuman plague from Victoria and shared it with Ratcatcher and Typhlosis, intending to participate in transmission of it.<ref name="II20.10">Last 20.10</ref>

Fanart Gallery

• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Crystalclear sketch by somnolentSleep on Discord
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Sketch by -Swimmingly- on Reddit
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Concept art of Crystalclear's thinker-enhanced spectacular vision. Art by Lonsheep
• Error creating thumbnail: File missing
  Art by Scarfgirl
• The Death of Crystalman by Megapwn
  The Death of Crystalman by Megapwn
• Titan Crystalman
  Titan Crystalman

References

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Site Navigation

Foresight
Leader	Brio • Countenance (Second-in-command)
Members	Anelace • Effervescent • Relay • Typhlosis • Crystalclear • Ratcatcher
Associates	The Wardens