Superhero Romance character bio #5: Amity and Enmity

Another entirely random character today.  This time around, let’s do Amity and Enmity.  If anyone has any character requests, just shout them out. 

Amy and Emily Eden AKA “Amity” and “Enmity” are identical twins.  Amy is in charge of the kitchen at the Consortium Crater Lair, and I would imagine several other departments as well.  If I had to guess, I’d say she is also in charge of making costumes for the other members, but I’ve never really gone into that, so I can’t say for sure.  Whatever Emily is in charge of is unknown, but she is forced to do kitchen duty by the Human Resources Department, due to her inability to follow rules.  Their powers are that Amy is always happy and spreads joy wherever she goes and causes people to embrace their fellow man in blissful celebration.  Emily is an irritating harpy who no one likes and who causes people to become blinded by rage and hatred.  They spend all of their time together, either because no one else can stand them, or because their powers temper each other so that they don’t become out of control.  I’ve never actually written what would happen if they were separated for any length of time, but according to Tyrant (who has encountered them before in other dimensions), it’s not pretty.  His contention is that they are far more dangerous and powerful when they are apart, but I don't know if he's correct or not. 

They both have blonde hair and blue eyes (actually, their eye color has never been mentioned as far as I recall, but I just wrote down “blue” here for some reason, so that’s what I’m going to go with).  Amy dresses like a pilgrim, and uses phrases like “ever so nice,” while Emily prefers wearing nothing but red lingerie and a witch’s hat, and uses words which would make a drunken sailor blush.

Their backstory hasn’t really been gone into to any real degree yet.  It did exist in Yesterday’s Heroes at one point, but it got edited out.  I’m not entirely certain if it’s the one I’m going for with them anymore or not, so I won’t repeat it here.  It has been revealed that they were born in a town called “Sinner’s Grove, Massachusetts” though.  I have also always seen them as having a "Corsican Syndrome" type of thing where they can feel what the other is feeling.  It's never been mentioned in the books though.

They have a brother named Adam Eden AKA “Apathy,” whose power is evidently to make people just not care.  He himself rarely gets involved in anything, and seems (unsurprisingly) apathetic about everything.  His powers don't seem to change when not in the presence of his siblings though.  He favors wearing his pajamas at all times, and stays to himself.  His only contribution to the Consortium seems to be his mumbling “Meh” when asked his opinion about various important topics, and shrugging disinterestedly at earth-shattering events.

Emily has a large backpiece tattoo of a dragon/snake monster emerging from a grove of apple trees above the bodies of its victims, who apparently ate it’s apples.  I have no idea why she has it or what it means.  If it's a metaphor for something, it's over my head.  I’m assuming that she got it as an homage to her surname and “good and evil” costume theme, but I don’t really know for sure.  I would like to say that it has a deeper meaning than that, but really, she just has it.  It was one of the first things I knew about her, so I’d imagine that she likes it.  Emily’s other passions include nail polish and raspberry iced tea.  Why ice tea?  Again, I have no idea.  There’s no story there as far as I know; that’s just what she likes.

Emily’s character was actually originally an entirely different character, but for some reason I changed her name, appearance and powers shortly before the final draft.  I honestly don’t remember why I did that.  In retrospect, it really didn’t make much sense, as the previous incarnation of her character “Miss Anthrope” even shared much of the same dialogue with her.  It was just one of those instances of reading the book and thinking “…Wait.  That’s not who says that.  Emily says that, not you.  …Wait…. Who’s Emily?”  At some point, I fully expect Missy to make an appearance as well, but I have no idea when or why.  Strangely, I doubt the two would get along anyway.  

Amy likes baking and singing little songs to herself.  She’s nice to everyone else in the Consortium, even the people who are threatening to kill her.  She doesn’t appear to worry about very much about anything, possibly due to her deep religious conviction, possibly due to her natural exuberant optimism, and possibly because she has complete faith in her own abilities, although she's too humble to admit it. 

I seem to recall the basic idea of their characters coming from the Simpsons characters “Sister Bernadette and Roxy Monoxide” from the episode “Pygmoelian.”  They are seen for a few seconds on a soap opera which Marge is watching, and one is evidently a nun and the other is a prostitute.  They in turn are based on Kristen Blake (DiMera) and her identical twins “Susan Banks” and “Sister Mary Moira Banks” on Days of Our Lives.  Who in turn are based on any number of stories dating back to before Shakespeare’s time, of evil twins.  Emily and Amy just so happen to be evil twins who get along.  I probably also based them on twins I used to know (who were also blonde and had blue eyes), and their struggles for individuality, despite the fact that they did everything together.  As far as I know though, unlike Emily, neither of them was ever warned by their parole officer that they should refrain from kidnapping anyone until they “realize that people need oxygen to live.”

I do recall having to think for a while as to what costumes they could wear though.  I remember that Emily was almost dressed as a little devil for a time, but then I decided that a witch’s hat would be the better antithesis of her sister’s pilgrim garb.  I also considered “Antipathy” as Emily’s codename, but it didn’t shorten into a real name as well, and it looked too much like both “Amity” and “Apathy” when reading fast.  At the very beginning of their characters, I also went back and forth on making them men or not.  Ultimately, I decided that finding the opposite of a pilgrim was harder for a male character.  A warlock look is hard to convey when he's wearing next to nothing, and again, a guy in a devil costume just doesn't strike me as the opposite of a pilgrim man.  Plus, I'd just always thought of them as female characters, and I couldn't change that.      

Amy and Emily are probably closest to modern age comic villainesses.  Emily’s costume and attitude puts her squarely in the crop of mid to late 80s comic characters, where underwear-clad dominatrices from hell were quite popular.  Amy’s just along for the ride.  Most comic book series would doubtlessly split them up and have one be a hero and the other be a villain, but I think it’s cute that they love each other so much.  I think they’d be bored and miserable if you put one on one team and the other on another.

I find their relationship interesting.  Amy is a genuinely good person, but doesn’t seem at all put off by what her sister does and says.  In fact, she seems to find it charming.  She’s a sweet girl.