Blinky
Context
“Blinky” is a space alien telepathic child. She appeared in Marvel’s 2017 Black Bolt Limited Series, by Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward .
This profile has S P O I L E R S for this excellent LS.
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Background
- Real Name: Nigh-unpronounceable by Terrans.
- Known Relatives: Ygyzys (brother, deceased. I suspect that it’s a nickname rather than his full name).
- Group Affiliation: None.
- Base of Operations: A secret space prison. Later on Attilan.
- Height: 5′ (1.52m). Weight: 85 lbs. (39 Kg.).
- Eyes: Yes. Hair: A bit.
Powers & Abilities
Blinky’s species is unrevealed. It’s presumably one with a small population and/or a limited footprint, since I don’t think we’ve seen people like her before.
Physically, Blinky seems to be the equivalent of a young Human teenager. Her only known skills are :
- Very basic stealth, mostly based on her small size.
- Basic pickpocketing.
- Panhandling.
However, her numerous eyes seem to give her superior central and peripheral vision.
Her intellectual and emotional maturity seems to be about those of a 12-year-old girl. But a particularly smart one, who has been through a lot of crap. And she could withstand the shock of being repeatedly tortured to death then resurrected, which means her mental stamina is well-above average.
She’s also as articulate as a well-educated adult. This, perhaps in combination with her powers, make her surprisingly persuasive.
Blinky seems familiar with spaceflight, and standardised spaceship UIs. I’d imagine the standard is based on Kree designs.
Christian Ward concept art. The dark motifs on her skin — possibly tattoos — were dropped for the final version, presumably because they’d be too time-consuming to paint in every panel.
Inner eye
Blinky has telepathic abilities, which are likely inherent to her species. She seems particularly good with range – scanning the other side of Earth from orbit wasn’t taxing for her.
When she uses her power, a ghostly sphere with an eye motif manifests above her head. She calls it her “inner eye”.
Known applications :
- Scanning Earth to get a sense of the population, its technology, and its most powerful minds. That was a bit overwhelming for her, though.
- Communicate in any language she can physically pronounce. It seems done by telepathically learning it within seconds from nearby speakers.
- Quickly build mind links allowing people to understand each other even if they do not share any mode of communication. This also facilitates communication with animals, but not in a supernatural fashion.
- Sharing telempathic impressions. These are more comprehensive and much faster than spoken language, and accurately convey the emotions felt during what she’s relaying.
- Mentally sensing the presence of living beings, and getting a good sense of their power level, some superficial thoughts, a sense of their propensity toward violence, etc..
- Since her telepathy is largely range-agnostic, she can sense an incoming teleportation as its riders are initiating it. Most teleportation being nigh-instantaneous, that’ll only mean a second or two of forewarning.
- Probing minds to seek specific data, though she doesn’t seem good at this. She mostly did this to know whether people carried valuables in pickable pockets. So she’d totally pwn Bilbo Baggins.
- One successful example of mind probing was sensing enemy intent/tactics during a space battle.
- Detecting that illusions and hallucinations aren’t real, and greatly helping other people reach the same conclusion.
- Accidentally manifesting her nightmares, sometimes as tangible projections. It is possible that Blinky has the potential for a telepathic projection ability akin to Danielle Moonstar’s.
- Blinky once performed unclear manipulations of her and other people’s astral forms. The situation was complicated and she had no idea what she was doing. But this gives a sense of what she may eventually become capable of.
She has no mental combat training, and doesn’t know how to fight astrally like Professor X does. But she can teepTo communicate using telepathy. a “shout” that’ll give pause to most people.
It seems likely that her potential power level, once she’ll be an adult, will be rather high.
History
“Blinky” was sold away by her parents, at a marketplace called the Blue Bazaar.
She apparently escaped, but was left to fend for herself on “a city the size of a planet”, the 600 Bazaars.
(One notes that Blinky got dizzy when she sensed ≈7.5B minds on Earth. A planet-sized city would have a much greater population than that. So perhaps it’s more akin to a huge space station with large parts being uninhabitable as it’s taken up by machinery. Heh, might be 600 commercial spaceships perma-moored together.)
As an urchin, she’d survive by stealing food and small sums from the merchants. Her telepathy allowed her to “scout” ahead to sense onlookers.
But eventually, she stole from one Londal the Rich. A reward was posted, and Blinky’s few friends betrayed her.
The child was sent to a secret, high-powered space prison. Since the money she stole was reportedly but pocket change, it seems likely that Londal was making the loudest example possible.
Big House
The space oubliette was a lost Inhuman project. A fantastically powerful Inhuman inmate had taken over a long time ago, and fed off the prisoners’ mental energies.
Reality within the prison was difficult to pin down. Torture included killing and resurrecting the inmates to break them.
An inmate from Earth, Carl “Crusher” Creel (a.k.a. The Absorbing Man) took the alien child under his protection. Since he couldn’t pronounce her name, he nicknamed her “Blinky”, due to her numerous eyes.
Protecting Blinky got Crusher into significant trouble. But he considered that it was his duty not to leave a child alone in this slammer from Hell.
Blinky and Crusher were recruited into a small prison gang led by Metal Master (Molyb). The other member was Raava the Unskrulled.
The four of them had a combination of abilities that could allow for escaping, but they needed one last member. One capable of doing tremendous damage.
Adνеrtisеmеnt
Hail to the King
Inhuman King Black Bolt (Blackagar Boltagon) was then sent to the secret prison, due to a machination by his brother Maximus. One of the first thing he tried to do was to save Blinky from lethal torture.
He was then killed for the first time by the Jailer. Both he and Blinky were restored to life in the same cell.
Once the Jailer was done with a first round of torture, Molyb and the gang recruited Black Bolt. Then moved on with their plan, restoring their dampened powers.
Once restored, Blinky could pinpoint the Jailer’s mental presence. This allowed the gang to beeline toward him – which would otherwise have been unfeasible.
The first strike failed, as the gang discovered the Jailer’s true power. But Black Bolt’s doggo Lockjaw soon busted his master out of prison.
The Silent King freed his allies, and a second strike was successful. However, the victory was only made possible by Crusher’s sacrifice.
Blue planet
As the gang dispersed, Blinky was left with Black Bolt – since she had nowhere to go. The Silent King took her in.
The pair returned “Monsteroso”, a gigantic alien child and fellow prisoner, to his parents. Though communication with this species is often impossible, Blinky’s telepathy made that a cinch.
With Medusa (Medusalith Amaquelin) having left Earth, Blinky was also invaluable in helping the Silent King communicate with the Inhumans – and with Humans. She continued to accompany him for a while.
In particular, it was important for the pair to tell Titania (Mary MacPherran Creel) of the death of her husband. Blinky used her inner eye to communicate to Mrs. Creel what her friendship with Crusher had been like.
Later on, she telepathically briefed Captain America (Steve Rogers). This prevented a misunderstanding at Crusher’s funeral.
Oh, the inhumanity
After the ceremony, Blinky was kidnapped by Black Bolt foe Lash (Lash of Orollan). Both Black Bolt and Titania responded.
Furthermore, this resulted in a manifestation of the Jailer. The mad Inhuman hadn’t actually been destroyed. He had been “hiding” within Blinky’s mind without her realising it.
Black Bolt managed to mentally engage it. But that was a fight even he couldn’t possibly win.
During the psychic struggle, Black Bolt retreated into comforting memories to scrape up additional mental strength. This provided an anchor for the astral form of both Blinky, and Black Bolt’s son Ahura.
After struggling to orient themselves among Black Bolt’s childhood memories, the pair bravely engaged the Jailer. Though they couldn’t do much, that opened another front. Titania and a freshly-reconstructed Absorbing Man then physically engaged the Jailer.
With all this backing, Black Bolt managed to whisper “it’s over”. This nuked the Jailer into oblivion and saved Blinky.
Aftermath
Blinky, Blackagar, Crusher and Mary then took a much-needed staycation in the Creels’ Bronx apartment.
By this point, Blinky was considering returning to the 600 Bazaars. Her goal was to unite the street people and mount an insurrection against the trader bosses.
Whether she ended up doing that is unknown. She was seen a few weeks later in Attilan, where she was helping Black Bolt in communicating with others. But there have been no further appearances since.
Description
The orange sort-of-jumpsuit she wears seems to be a prison uniform. She didn’t mind keeping it, though. It may be better clothing than the rags she presumably wore on the 600 Bazaars.
Blinky has greenish-blue skin, and a small shock of blueish-green hair on her head.
Her mouth and two noses are Human-like, but she has at least eleven eyes. Usually only nine are visible, as the other two are too high up her scalp to be visible – unless her hood is pulled back.
The colour of Blinky’s eyes can change quickly, shifting through Human and non-Human hues. These colours aren’t symmetrical.
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Personality
Blinky is a highly ethical and empathic kid. She refuses to cause harm to innocents, and is adamant about protecting children.
She’s a particularly friendly, touchy-feely, open-minded young girl.
Even though she has been through untold horrors, Blinky sees the world with wonder. She’s always glad to meet new people (and animals), and wants to be their friend.
She also demonstrated a high level of emotional sincerity, and a strong sense of innocence. As well as a strong ability to babble on.
Blinky often mentions “the Lady”. This seems to be a goddess in her culture. Heh, maybe she’s a mutant Asari.
She likes ice cream and jokes.
PTSD
Blinky remains haunted by Londal the Rich, Boss Of A Hundred Bazaars. This being exulted in cruelty toward those who stole from him, or owed him money.
She has frequent nightmares about the Debt-Worm. Londal’s victims would be thrown into this creature’s gullet, to have their skin slowly eaten away.
Blinky hates it when people are killed, even if there wasn’t much choice. She can often sense their death with her inner eyes, which makes it worse.
Quotes
“Praise the Lady, you are alive ! The Jailer killed you more times than I’ve ever seen. Most don’t last two or three deaths. You must be tough.”
“I can feel its psychic power burning my face. Like standing near a cookfire. It’s coming from down here.”
“My inner eye tells me you’re good people, but you don’t understand. Whatever you’re mad at him for, he’s been punished for it already. We all were. My name is Blinky. Please, let me show you what happened to us.”
(Upon meeting Captain America) “Your outfit is very pretty, by the way. The colours are beautiful.”
DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
“Blinky”
| Dex: 02 | Str: 01 | Bod: 02 |
| Int: 04 | Wil: 04 | Min: 06 |
| Inf: 03 | Aur: 05 | Spi: 06 |
| Init: 009 | HP: 025 |
Powers:
Broadcast empath: 02, Comprehend languages: 22, Danger sense: 04, Life Sense: 14, Magic Field: 12, Mind field: 12, Mind Probe: 06, Shrinking: 01, Superspeed: 06, Telepathy: 07, Truesight: 14
Bonuses and Limitations:
- All Powers save Shrinking are Contingent Upon Life Sense.
- Broadcast empath only on animal and pre-sapient subjects, and only to project a feeling of friendliness.
- Comprehend Languages has a 3 APs Area of Effect.
- Danger Sense only in a quiet and relaxed environment, where Blinky isn’t tense.
- Danger Sense works on threats within her Life Sense’s Range.
- Life Sense has a Special +24 Range Bonus.
- Life Sense is Discerning when it comes to mental/psychic/telepathic/magic strength. This is likely tied to the strength of astral manifestation the sensed life could achieve.
- Magic Field and Mind Field are Self Only, and only work against attacks, illusions, hallucinations, manifestations, etc. that Blinky can Life Sense aren’t true. The Powers of Mirage (Danielle Moonstar), Black Mamba (Tanya Sealy) or Phobia (Angela Hawkins) are typical things Blinky can counter.
- If Blinky can warn others that such an attack isn’t real, she can deploy 6 APs of both Fields with a 2 APs Area of Effect. This takes an Automatic Action, but only affects those who hear and understand her warning.
- Mind Probe has no Range per se, but can be used on anything she can sense via Life Sense.
- Shrinking is Always On (until she grows up). Ranged OV is 03, land speed is 01.
- Superspeed only when conducting scanning Tasks using Life Sense.
- Telepathy cannot normally initiate Mental combat.
Skills:
Charisma: 05, Thief (Pickpocketing, Stealth): 02
Bonuses and Limitations:
Charisma is a Powered Skill, and is Contingent Upon Life Sense.
Advantages:
None demonstrated.
Connections:
Black Bolt (High), Absorbing Man & Titania (High), Lockjaw (Low). She presumably has no means of contacting either Raava or Molyb.
Drawbacks:
Creepy Appearance, Exile (Involuntary).
Occupation:
Kid.
Motivation:
Uphold Good.
Wealth:
Nada.
Design Notes
That APs of sensory Powers (here, Life Sense) are both a Range and an AV/EV vs. countermeasures (say, Obscure) is one of the gravest issues facing modern strategic geopolitical planning. So I’m increasingly writing those with a big Range using a Special Bonus.
Broadcast Empath is based on just one interaction with Lockjaw. Normally it’d be too speculative, but the fit with her general abilities and personality is pretty strong.
We don’t see her doing a telepathic shout on non-friendlies, but Charisma (Intimidation) would likely model that.
Source of Character: Black Bolt LS.
Helper(s): Darci.
Writeup completed on the 28th of May, 2021.