[OOC] Application

[traumatizing]

- PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Simone
AGE: 20
PRONOUN OF CHOICE: No preference
EMAIL ADDRESS: simmichan@gmail.com
AIM SCREENNAME & MAIN PERSONAL LJ ACCOUNT: BluePeterLadyboy/ration
OTHER CHARACTERS: N/A

- CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Terrance Ward
CODENAME: Trauma
SERIES/SOURCE: Avengers: The Initiative || Marvel 616
AGE: 20
GENDER: Male
ROLE: Counsellor

BACKGROUND:

Terry's life was, like so many out there, pretty normal until his powers manifested. He grew up in a fairly tight family unit with his parents and younger brother. Even when he started going through his "goth phase" and his dad found it the most hilarious thing in the world to make fun of, they were still a close unit. It was all in fun, no one got hurt. (Let's face it, when a teenage boy starts wearing black lipstick and studded collars, finding it funny is definitely one of the better reactions among fathers across the world.)

Oh, and then that fateful High School horror story.

It should have been simple. Go out on a limb and ask out a girl who clearly had no interest whatsoever in a guy like you. Get shot down. Get angry, get teased by your friends. Get over it. That's how it should've been. That's how it happens to millions of guys across the world all the time.

But of course, that's not how it went down.

So Terry got angry, understandably so. Who was this chick, thinking she was so much better than everyone else? But instead of just bitching her our and tromp back to his friends like he'd intended to do, his powers decided that was the perfect moment to make themselves known. First attacking the girl with a vision of her insecurities about her weight and eating disorder. Then when her boyfriend tried to step in, Terry unfortunately outed him as having a bit of a thing for one of his friends. In the hallway, of all places. One of his friends managed to get him out of the corridor, out of the way of anyone who might have some issues to take up with him into an unoccupied room. She tried to reassure him and calm him down, "they deserved it." "That was cool, like a mutant." But Terry was, understandably, a mess. He was angry, sure, but he hadn't wanted to hurt anyone. And where had those powers even come from? He was confused, terrified and really pretty distressed, and before he knew what had happened, he'd unintentionally unleashed his powers on his friend too, sending her away screaming.

So the smart thing to do at this point was to cut his losses and drop out of school. He finished high school from home via correspondence and pretty much vegitated. No way was he going back into the world after what happened and home was nice and comfortable and safe.

Of course, with a power like his, that security only lasted so long.

The first (rather large) step on the downward hill was during an argument with his mother when he got angry and turned into her worst fear. She got so scared that she had to be commited. It was pretty clear from that point that not even his family was safe from him. He was a danger to anyone who so much as had a bad dream around him and so he withdrew further, holing himself up away from even his family.

The subject of leaving and learning to control his powers properly came up with his dad one morning, (since through sheer willpower alone clearly wasn't working,) and Terry was pretty outraged by the whole thing. He viewed it as his dad just trying to get rid of him. But after some arguing and some unfortunate fears coming to light, he agreed to go and took off within the next few days, having found out about an 'initiative' a state over for helping kids with powers. It turned out to be more along the lines of superhuman boot camp, but he wasn't really aware of that at the time.

He started out learning to use his powers in a purely offensive manner, and got beaten up for it quite a lot, but despite his power being a potentially high level threat, in practice it just wasn't all that great. For a handful of reasons. Like the fact that it doesn't work on people who are immune to telepathy or people with no fears. People who have faced their fears, even, can fight back pretty effectively. The biggest factor, however, was that in spite of being an angry, world-hating kid, he just didn't have it in him to routinely go out and put the hurt on people. (Defending himself or others being a different matter entirely, of course.) He did, however, manage to find a bit of a niche for his powers - mostly under the tutelage of someone with a similar power - in helping people face and overcome their fears and anxieties. And really, in a place that was effectively teaching kids to be soldiers, there was a lot of those going around.

Using connections from within the camp, he got put on the fast track to getting a certificate as an MFCC and became one of the site's official counsellors for the duration of his stay. Unfortunately, due to several circumstances, he couldn't stick around at the camp much longer for the sake of his own sanity and resigned. Thankfully, he didn't have to run around aimlessly for long, since it was shortly after this he heard about the Xavier Institute and he figured, if anything, he could probably help here a little. Offering the kind of help and support that he never had.

PERSONALITY:

Terry seems, at first, to be not much more than an angry emo kid with a strangely appropriate power. Which, well. Is pretty much the truth. He's estranged from his family due to his power (which considers a "condition" rather than a gift) - which is probably what fed into his anger more than anything else. For all the anger and hate he displays, however, he's an inherently good person- just with a few issues to smooth out. Though- when you can't help but pick up on everyone's deepest fears, who wouldn't be? He'd be willing to help out if anyone got close enough to make him care, but he's stuck in a bit of, "the world hates me and I hate it too," place right now.

He's a rather introverted fellow, he's usually the person in his circle of friends who'll stand back and absorb the conversation and offer the occasional bit of input. He's not really fond of talking about himself at any great length or being the centre of attention. Unfortunately, he's a little more than socially awkward, he was one of the ~*~goth kids~*~ at school, which pretty much says a lot about his life as an outsider. Plus it doesn't really help that the last time he went out of his way to talk to someone, his powers manifested and RUINED HIS LIFE.

He's deathly afraid of being alone but he's also terrified of hurting the people closest to him - ever since his powers manifested in High School he's slowly driven everyone away due to the fact that he couldn't control his powers, and they tended to come out during the worst times. (He turned into his mother's worst fear during an argument and she was so traumatised she had to be committed, during an argument with his father he found out his father was afraid of killing him, which was what ultimately made him leave.) Because of this, he tends to keep people at arm's length, better to be alone of his own volition than to be rejected again because of his powers.

Terrance has... a moderate temperament. ("Moderate" meaning "perpetually cranky," but it could be worse.) It takes a lot to get under his skin. Honestly, the only surefire way to get a rise out of him is to threaten his family or the people close to him. That's something that'll get his temper to kick up a notch or ten. Most other things, he tends to just take in his stride. (Or bottle them up to an unhealthy degree. There is nothing wrong with this at all.)

On a professional level, Terry is rather good with people. When he doesn't have to be social, he's generally good at knowing what to say and can usually moderate his crankiness to a degree that isn't either intimidating or just generally unpleasant to be around. In social situations, though, he's pretty much a huge failure. He's uncomfortable around people, insecure and has trouble picking up on cues more often than not. Cues that aren't "shut the hell up," anyway. Of course, most of this stems from the fact that he knows he's not entirely a pleasant guy to be around. That and he spends too much time being in despair to have time for this 'socialising' thing anyway.

APPEARANCE: Terry's a pretty average sized guy, standing at 5'10 and weighing 175lbs. Black hair that almost always looks like he just rolled out of bed and blue eyes. These and an apparently acquired fondness for suits and black nail polish make up a prime target of all kinds of emo-kid comments. He's not exactly the fittest guy out there either, leaning towards "slightly squishy" on the "I'm-not-fat-I'm just-" scale of body types.
POWERS:

He's a boggart.

Well. Sort of. His power works in two parts. The first is limited telepathy, with which he can sniff out a person's fears. The second part being a shape-shifting ability, wherin he'll transform into said fear as the person sees it.

Also, despite having his power under control, it's always 'on,' so to speak. Whilst he may not always know what the fears of people around him are, he's always aware of whether or not people around him are afraid or not. The more afraid they are or the more people there are who're scared, the harder it is for him to ignore, even from great distances.

The hugest downside to his power not having an off switch, is probably the fact that it can fly out of control. While he mostly manages to keep a lid on it when he's angry or panicked (not that the same can be said for his temper or judgement,) if people around him project their fears too strongly, he kind of doesn't have any say in the matter.

ANYTHING ELSE?:

- RP SAMPLES
First-person sample:

[There's some awkward fumbling on his part for a moment before he speaks. Oh, he does hate introducing himself so.]

This is Trau-- [Wait, no. Not doing codenames this time, are we? OKAY LET'S START AGAIN.]

Hey, uh. I'm Terry. I'll be one of your counsellors here. [Pause. This is a bad thing to be as horribly awkward as he is about, isn't it.] My door'll pretty much be always open-- so long as I'm not already with someone, anyway. So. Feel free to just drop in or make an appointment, if you'd prefer.

... Um. Looking forward to meeting you all...?

[He hesitates a little and FINALLY cuts the post there. Introducing himself is always so tough :c]

Third-person sample:

Sometimes he hung on to the hope that he could salvage things.

It was rarer these days than it had been when he'd left initially, but it was still there. Some mornings he'd wake up with this naive belief that he could go home and fix things, pick up where life had left off before his powers had kicked in and royally screwed him over.

It was hopeless now, he knew that. It wasn't as if he'd severed his ties entirely, he'd always made sure to send an address back to his dad. And Address and a number every time either changed. But he'd never heard anything back, not a word. Not even a blank birthday card when it rolled around. Not that he'd been expecting anything, but it would've been nice to know he was still remembered. Cared about. He couldn't rightly find it in himself to pin the blame on anyone else, however. How could anyone love someone who was like a walking reminder of everything they ever feared. Care about someone who scared his own mother so badly that she spent most nights strapped to a bed in a mental ward.

He sighed-- you didn't. Couldn't.

So even if it hurt - and God it hurt so, so much when he actually gave himself the chance to ever think about it - he just couldn't seem to find it in himself to blame his dad for wanting to get on with his life, pretend Terry had never existed if it made life a little easier to cope with. If that's how it needed to be, then that was how it needed to be.

There was at least the smallest part of him that hadn't given up, however. Maybe more out of habit than genuine hope for change. He still took the little bit of time, sat as his desk with a tight-lipped frown as he scrawled his new address on the back of a nondescript postcard addressed to his father.

Just in case he ever felt like changing his mind.