[sometimes the streetkid looks at the fancy suits and dinners those shithead corpos get; or the dirt tracks and broken beer bottles the nomads leave in their wake... and convinces himself he won't like it any better than going home to concrete that hug too tight and a city that cheats on him.]
on a meta level? streetkid V my beloved. on a story level? i think sometimes, privately, little v gets self-conscious after meeting people like Rogue who's the biggest fixer in NC or Judy who's the best BD editor he knows, or Kerry who's this massive rockerboy legend, and all these other big shots.. and sometimes, privately, he still feels like a nobody kid from Heywood.
"How'd you even end up working for Arasaka?"
"Ha, well... That's a funny story actually."
I've been asked before how Vince, with his bold tattoos and all that he already had before the start of his short but intense copo-rat career, even ended up at Arasaka.
I always imagined that, despite being very traditional (and Vince has to tone down his appearance significantly when he takes the job eventually), Arasaka also is opportunistic enough to turn a blind eye to a person's appearance if they're only just useful and talented enough - and don't take on a position that is very representative or focused on customer contact. All that definitely applied in Vince's case. At that time he was wasting his skills in tech and netrunning at a car repair shop. He randomly encountered Jenkins there, did him a big favor almost by accident. Jenkins got curious, did some research, and uncovered who Vince was, that he had a prestigious education and his parents even had ties to Arasaka. He even knew Vince's father, not well, but in passing, and had respect for him, which was reason enough to try and get him to work for him. Vince though didn't really think Jenkins offering him a chance at a job was serious, that he was only being played with... so he decided to play a little with Jenkins as well. He showed up to the interview as loud and bold as he could, for fun, but also as a test to see how Jenkins would deal with the situation.
Long story short. He didn't even go to the meeting with any intention to take on a job - but in the end still did, to everyone's surprise, including his own xD
These are some designs that I made some long time ago and lost, so I had to redo them from memory, I think they ended up looking better than the original
The idea was to make characters that were not necessarily villains but more antagonists or rivals for the loonatics, even potential members of the team, not all of them would have powers, some would require their physical abilities and technology.
Tory Russo could easily be an old friend of Lexy's who got superpowers and has a hard time controlling them (cryomancer) , she could also be a love interest for Duck,
Pierre le pew would have some smell that influences people's emotions (perhaps a colony), and would be a good swordsman to rival Ace
Peeny Pussycat (shadow cat) would be a professional thief who has a avanced tec suit that makes her invisible, she plays for her own side and can be both an ally and an enemy.
Fox is perhaps the most original for not having a better-known counterpart to the Looney Tunes. I imagine her as a hacker, an expert in clandestine weapon technologies and a potential rival for tech.
Finally Veloz Gonzales and Toro would be sporting rivals for Rev and Slam respectively, although honorable rivals, Veloz would have superspeed and Toro super strength and invulnerability