[ooc] ryslig application

[traumatizing]

OOC INFORMATION
Name: Frank
Contact: AIM: AvoidedDrowning || FiremanSam
Other Characters: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Terrance Ward
Age: 21
Canon: Marvel 616
Canon Point: Avengers: The Initiative #30, after he leaves the Initiative to go ~find himself~.
Character Information: Avengers: The Initiative || About Terry

Personality:

You want to heal. To do what's right. They can try to suppress who you are... But in the end...

... It has to come out.

Trauma is a pretty standoffish customer. (No word of a lie, I counted - he smiles for a grand total of three panels throughout his run in the comic and spends most of the rest of it scowling or looking impassive.) He can be perfectly amiable and even downright friendly, but he does tend to put out the good ol' fashioned "don't talk to me" signals. Even when he does somehow end up in a conversation, he tends to stay a bit tight-lipped, preferring to absorb what the other person has to say and offer his opinion if/when he feels it's necessary rather than making inane - and probably stupid - comments all over the place.

Even though he looks like your average, run-of-the-mill emo kid, he does tend towards being a fair bit more mature and intelligent than one might guess. Being shoved into the Shadow Initiative and becoming a counsellor a good few years before he should reasonably have been able to will have that effect. He carries a lot of anger and resentment around- for all sorts of things. The world, his dad, that girl who turned him down in high school, his old friends, etc. But mostly it's all aimed at himself, for not keeping better control of his powers and/or not realising he couldn't control them and decide to seek help sooner. Or even really unreasonable stuff like not managing to pre-empt their manifestation somehow.

But he has come to learn that a lot of this is either an unreasonable amount of beating himself up or that he just can't carry it all around with him all the time every day for the rest of his life (which could end up being really fucking long, canon hasn't really explained anything about his whole "not dying for realsies" thing.)

Terry wants to help people. Thanks in no small amount to the influence of people like Justice, who was the first person to look at him and realise that he was scared and hurt and just as much of a danger to himself as to anyone else if he couldn't get his powers under control, and Dani Moonstar, who taught him how to control his powers and steered him away from the idea that his powers can only ever be used to hurt people. His nature as a deeply caring individual comes to light quickly as he immediately begins to reach out to the people around him, offering them help with their own anxieties and fears. He's compassionate and empathetic, almost to a fault - something that consistently puts him at risk of getting into some serious shit with the Hood and Taskmaster because the things they've asked him to do in exchange for his family's safety and an empty promise of undoing his mothers insanity go directly against everything he believes in.

All his anger, guilt and self-loathing has kind of come full-circle during his time in the Initiative. Though he's never really gotten over what happened with his family and friends, he did learn to accept that it happened and get on with things and even wilfully uses his powers as a therapy aid rather than just trying to suppress them and hoping that they'd go away or there'd be a 'cure' like he did before. Of course, agreeing to help Osborn and Hood keep all manner of people who shouldn't have been working Initiative recruits for any number of reasons (PTSD, being criminally insane, being the Hood's cronies, to name a few reasons) able to fight in exchange for his mother's health had a pretty detrimental effect on his mental health, as evidenced by the fact that it kind of, y'know, made him a conduit for Nightmare to pass through and try to fuck shit up.

So, yeah. There's definitely a pretty heavy dose of guilt there about going against his better judgement and messing with people's heads and probably getting a good few people killed or crippled as a result.

Generally speaking, he's quite easy-going. Save for a few special people, it doesn't seem to be particularly easy to get under his skin. And even though he generally looks pretty cranky, he also seems pretty mellow most of the time. That said, his temper has proven pretty short. Trauma probably likes to think of himself as someone who'll be smart about things, but when push comes to shove he tends to go running in, fists swinging. And he won't hesitate to go all fear-Hulk on people who push the right buttons. (Threatening his family was more'n likely the core reason for the animosity between him and Hood.)

Since fear is such a massive part of his life, it's probably important to note his biggest fear - that no one will ever care about him because of what he is. He's terrified by the idea of rejection or abandonment. Feeding into this is also a horrible fear of hurting the people closest to him. I mean, he doesn't want to unintentionally fear out on anyone, but given that all the people he's was closest to when his powers kicked in got the worst of it and he hasn't seen them since. Well, it makes sense he'd be worried about it all happening again, even if his control is infinitely better than it was back then. Being able to reconcile things with Abby (and parting amiably with Penance too, if you want to think about it that way) has given him a degree of hope for the future, but these things linger.

5-10 Key Character Traits: Compassionate, altruistic, short-tempered, impulsive, a deep sense of shame and guilt, slightly neurotic, observant, intuitive.
Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, or EITHER? Conflicts!
Opt-Outs: Werewolf, Werebear, Troll, Goblin, Gargoyle

Roleplay Sample:

It starts with a nightmare.

Funny that. Appropriate even. He wakes to a chorus of his own screams and straight away something feels... wrong. Like something’s bored its way in and doesn’t plan to leave any time soon. Something’s inside him that isn’t him and he doesn’t know how he knows but he knows. Just as sure as he knows that this is no accident.

He hasn't slept in a week when he calls Abby.

He tries to keep his voice level - like nothing unusual is going on. Just having a breakdown quite possibly brought on by sleep deprivation and he's started calling in sick to work because he can't do his job like this and he could really, really use a friend right now.

No big deal.

"Hey, It's Terry." Terry frowns at the phone, he would've preferred to speak to her instead of the answering machine, but unlike some people she actually checks her messages. Needs must, he supposes, sighing through his nose in frustration as he tries to order his thoughts enough to leave a message that gets across a sense of urgency without being panicked. "I'm, uh-- Can you call me back when you get this?" No. "I don't really want to talk about this to a machine, I just..."

He sighs again, part of him lamenting the fact that he hasn't shaved in days as he scratches his chin, "I could use a friend?" Another pause, longer this time, wondering if he should just scrap this message and start again. He'll be here hours if he lets himself do that, and he knows it, so he forces himself to add a hasty, "call me. Bye," before he hangs up.