X-Men: End Times Sample Canon Application
In addition to the Sample OC App, we’ve provided the app of one of our Canon
characters, generously provided by the first player of Jean Grey. This
helps illustrate both what makes a good app, and good ways to alter a
canon version in new and interesting ways. Again, the personal
information is removed, and the app was good enough to approve on the
first try.
Before reading the app itself, keep in mind some
of the good things that are in it. Aside from those things mentioned in
the OC sample app, with a canon character, one of the keys is showing
knowledge of the original character in being able to twist it to a new
and different version. The character is both recognizeably Jean Grey,
and yet a DIFFERENT Jean Grey.
At any rate, without furthur ado, the app...
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5. Name: Dr.
Jean Grey, aka Red, aka Jeanie
6. Description: Tall,
leggy, with a physique that would seem to be a natural for any runway,
this young woman has the looks for a high-profile career as a
supermodel, but she doesn’t carry herself in that manner.
Her deep emerald eyes carry a weight of pain in them, far
outweighing her other positive attributes. There are already
minute age lines around eyes and lips, and they are not hidden by any
sort of make-up. Her lips are full, yet they do not appear
luscious or inviting. There is almost always a world-weary
down-turning of the corners of her mouth, shattering any illusion of
beauty. Creamy skin is slightly blemished, or maybe it’s
simply that she doesn’t bother to use make-up to hide the
sun-freckles on her nose and cheeks. She has the natural red hair
of the Irish folk, waving gently, but she wears it cut short.
Whether this was for a ‘look’ or simply because she
doesn’t want to have to deal with long curly hair, that is
anyone’s guess. Her attire masks her body’s curves.
Instead of a sharp business suit or a body-hugging spandex
number, she has chosen a pair of conservative dark green slacks with
matching pumps, and a large and shapeless cardigan tossed carelessly
around her torso. She hunches within the large cardigan as if
hiding from something, or maybe simply hiding from the entire world.
7. Psyche
Scully - For
everything in the world, there is a rational, scientific explanation.
Even if we don’t know what that is yet. Jean Grey is
firmly of this belief. The only exception to her Scully
tendencies is those relating to God (see Christian). Otherwise,
Jean will happily go out of her way to debunk any mad theories of
magic, mutants, and random mysticism. She doesn’t believe
in the occult, nor in mutants, nor in the Loch Ness monster and the
theory of Atlantis. All of that stuff, to her, is fantasy, much
in the way of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It merely
requires more research, more data, and eventually a truthful, rational,
scientific explanation will arise.
Delusional - Jean Grey
is a delusional young woman. She has been told since she was a
child that boogeymen didn’t exist, that the voices in her head
were simply her imagination. In the face of parental and doctoral
rationalizations for what was happening to her, it is no wonder she
developed a very keen sense that anything weird happening isn’t
truly happening, or that it’s not happening the way she may think
it’s happening. In the face of facts that would shatter her
worldview, she will seek a more rational explanation and dismiss any
theories that don’t fit what she believes is The Truth (tm).
Denial - Denial
isn’t just a river in Egypt. Jean Grey is in such vast
denial about so many things, it’s a wonder she doesn’t
explode. She denies her own mutant powers, claiming they are
merely voices in her head, that she’s mad. She denies the
existence of mutants, for that, she claims, is just plain silly.
She denies magic, mythos, and the occult, claiming that they are
merely artifacts of infernal slavery and attempts by Satan to conquer
the world. She denies the real truth, because the idea that her
life is a lie scares her enough to rail against it. Her favorite
word is no.
Introvert - Jean Grey is a repressed young woman.
She is not comfortable with herself, and she is not comfortable
with other people around her. It is even difficult for her to be around
friends and family she’s known for years, much less strangers.
She is very conservative in her viewpoints, and she does not
willingly seek out human contact. In short, she’s a prude.
Fear - The world is
swiftly becoming larger than she can imagine. Things are
happening that she is harder and harder pressed to denounce. Jean
Grey lives in fear of the madness, of allowing human contact, of
finding out once and for all that she is inescapably /wrong/ about the
world around her. Fear preys on her every thought, on her every
movement, on her very soul. She has to force herself to show no
fear, but it is a very exhaustive and difficult struggle.
Tempermental - When
provoked, or faced with the easily-debunkable, Jean Grey can show a
flash of that celtic temper that redheads are famous for. She is
capable of a righteous anger, and the phrase ‘hell hath no
fury’ was written just for her. When enraged, her eyes seem
to flash, and her beautiful face takes on a terrible aspect.
Sarcastic Wit - When
provoked, Jean is capable of lashing out with her tongue. While
not as witty as a Victorian professional wit, she can be quite scathing
in her responses to various stimuli. She has disdain for the
spandex-types and their fancy-schmantzy codenames and feels quite free
to insult or otherwise belittle them. She can get quite colorful
in her insults, yet she doesn’t use much by the way of profanity.
Shattered - Jean Grey
is a shattered young woman. Destroyed at the age of 10, she has
slowly been trying to reclaim her life from the demons which torment
her. She laments her stolen childhood and rails against those who
would steal the adult life she’s carved for herself. Her
psyche was shattered when Annie Richardon died. Because she did
not receive proper treatment for the voices in her head, that
shattering has only been lumped together, held together with bubble
gum.
Poor Self-Esteem - Jean
Grey has a poor self-image. She may look great, but she
doesn’t wear make-up, she doesn’t feel proud of herself,
and she is very uncomfortable with herself and her body. She
makes efforts to conceal herself from view, whether it be by wearing
loose clothing to wearing glasses that make her look like a bookworm.
Unconsciously, she slumps as she walks or sits, a slouch that may
become a health issue in the future, since slouching is not good for
one’s back. Strong Will - Despite how fragile Jean Grey’s
psyche is, she holds an indomitable will when it comes to things she
believes, even in the face of ‘evidence’ to the contrary.
This will is about the only thing holding her together right now.
It fuels her faith and is what helps keep her faith from
faltering.
Christian - Jean
Grey is a mainstream Christian. She believes in the Protestant
faith that is the norm for much of America. She is not a
demonstrative sort of Christian, activist and annoying others by asking
them to convert. She is the quiet sort, the one who latches on to
her faith as a lifeline. Her belief in God and Jesus and the
Bible’s teachings pervade her life, but are not flagrant so as to
be offensive to others.
Brittle - Despite
her faith in God, despite her faith in science and rationality, Jean
has a tenuous grasp on her mental stability. Any attacks upon her
worldview, if not met with denial and rationalizations, will swiftly
corrode her sanity until she is once more that which she fears the most:
insane. Her mental stability is extremely fragile, and it is
merely being held by her strong force of will and by her faith.
If she loses one or both of them, she will fall into the madness
once more.
8. Physical
Hot babe - While
she would deny it to her death, Jean Grey does have the looks to be a
major player on the supermodel scene. She could put on a swimsuit
and have every male (and a number of female) tongue on the ground with
major drooling on their part. She certainly looks like she works
out, yet she doesn’t appear to even notice it or appreciate how
her looks affect others.
9. Skills
Lecturing - Being
an associate professor at Bard College, Jean Grey is skilled in
lecturing. While not being horribly flamboyant, she is able to
use her knowledge of medicine and sociology to speak reputably and
seemingly knowledgeably about those two fields. She is not yet
experienced enough in either field to be able to go without lecture
notes and speak directly from memory, however.
Scholarship - Scholarship
is the ability to act and behave like a scholar. This includes a
certain air of knowledge cultivated around a person, an appropriate
dress code, and being able to mix and mingle with other repressed
academics. It also means the ability to actually go to school for
the purpose of studying and not partying. This is Jean. She
can study, she can talk to her fellow academics, and she can act
knowledgeable.
Medicine - The lesser
of Jean’s two scholastic pursuits, medicine and medical science
were enough to garner her pre-med status while in school. She left of
study of medical matters upon reaching her masters, so as to focus more
on sociology. She has medical knowledge of human tissues and such
up to the level of an EMT or med student, but is not a licensed
physician or geneticist like that harridan MacTaggert. :)
Sociology - Odd
that a wall flower would choose sociology as something to study.
Not full psychology, as that’s a little bit too close to
home for her comfort, but sociology, which is the study of society and
trends and how people behave in groups. It involves a good deal
of psychology, but is geared more toward the big picture of humanity as
a whole, rather than delving into a single psyche to analyze. As
this is what Jean has her doctorate in, she is fully versed in all the
lingo, all the latest theories and breakthroughs, and can quote a
number of sociological professionals at the drop of a hat.
Research - Living in a
library is something Jean could happily do for the rest of her life.
She loves books, she is well-versed in reading them, picking out
good information, and also using alternative resources for information,
such as the internet, microfilm, etc. She is almost a borderline
forensic specialist in this regard, except her strength is digging
through a paper trail, not entrails. :)
10. Powers
None - Jean Grey
firmly believes she has no powers. She rarely exhibits anything
that resembles a mutant power. Even if she did, she would either
claim it was the wind or an hallucination.
Potentials - Please
check out the potentials section for what powers she truly has and may
someday actualize.
11. Magic
None
12. Tech
None beyond what a regular collegiate professor
could acquire on her salary.
13. Resources
Bard College - Jean
Grey is an associate professor at Bard College. This means she
has been hired to teach various classes, generally first-level sorts of
classes, given her own youth and recent acquisition of her doctorate.
She is not tenured and thus could be fired at any time for any
reason by the college. So, she makes a point of not angering her
benefactor. She has a small office, as befits her status, with a
large bookcase, a desk, a chair for a visitor, and a computer.
That’s about it. She has faculty privileges at the
college, the same as many other member of the staff there, yet
isn’t inducted into the privileges that more senior members of
faculty get, such as her father. Bard College pays her a modest
salary, as befitting her status as a new professor. It is enough
to live on. It doesn’t allow a lavish lifestyle, but she
fares better than her students.
John, Elaine, Sarah Grey - Jean Grey’s family are always nearby, there for
her. John, her father, is a tenured professor at Bard College and
unabashedly greased the wheels for her own employment there. Her
mother Elaine is a professional housewife. Sarah Grey is
Jean’s older sister. She’s some kind of activist or other,
always out there enjoying life, trying to get Jean to join her in
having fun. Sarah is married and doesn’t live in the area,
but she has a daughter and son, Joey and Gailyn, whom Jean adores.
Jean’s family kept her going during the dark time after
Annie Richardson’s death, and she can always depend on them for
anything.
14. Background
Jean Grey was born to John and Elaine Grey in
Annandale-on-Hudson. She was born into a comfortable middle-class
white-bread family, with an older sister named Sarah. Her days
were full of bliss and joy as her sheltered life kept her from more
than a few skinned knees and one broken arm. As she went to
school, she acquired a best friend, Annie Richardson, and the two were
inseparable. Elaine knew that if the two girls weren’t at
her house, they were over at the Richardsons’. Sarah had
her own group of friends, so she and Jean never really spent a great
deal of time together. That was all right with Jean, she had
Annie to hang out with. As they grew older, the two girls got
more active, playing out in the yard or whatnot. On one
particularly fine day, Elaine Grey heard a scream from the yard, near
the street. Rushing out to the sound of her daughter’s
voice, she found Jean cradling Annie, and a terrified and pale driver
bolting out of his car, repeating over and over that he didn’t
see the girls in a stricken voice.
Annie died shortly upon arriving at the hospital.
Jean cried bitterly, demanding that her friend wake up, claiming
that she’d heard Annie’s voice even after Annie had died.
Elaine and the newly-arrived John chalked it up to a
child’s fantasy. However, Jean started saying some truly
wild things, like claiming to hear voices that no one else heard,
seeing pretty lights that no one else could, and moving things without
touching them. The Greys were upset at the change in their pretty
daughter, and they sought out the best child psychologists for advice,
while Jean struggled with her own identity and these invasive voices in
her head.
The psychologists prescribed various meds to
control Jean’s behavior, but the girl grew more and more
frightened by what was happening to her. She didn’t
understand why no one would believe she could hear voices, she
didn’t understand why she could move things just by looking at
them, she simply didn’t understand why her best friend died and
she didn’t. She saw the spectre of Death over her
constantly, a presence waiting to prey upon her very soul. In the
end, all of the counseling and all of the drugs couldn’t put
Humpty Jeanie back together again.
She was eventually remanded into the custody of a
mental institution. In the institution, Jean was given drugs that
sapped her very will. These drugs kept her barely lucid, and it tore
her parents’ hearts to see her there, yet they didn’t know
what else to do for their daughter. Sarah rarely came to visit during
this time, and she never brought her kids with her. Over the
course of a few years, Jean was given a regular high school education,
when she was properly conscious and lucid enough to remember. As
she neared her 17th birthday, she was released from the institution,
proclaimed mentally stable and ready to be rehabilitated into society.
Little did they know.
Only through constant use of prescription drugs
aimed at dampening the imaginative parts of her mind down, Jean is able
to make it through every day, one by one. Like a recovering
alcoholic, she counts each day as a blessing, and she has to
consciously work to make it through any given day. Eschewing a
more social life, Jean found her balance in a library, living her life
vicariously through books and through scholastic work.
She eventually went to college at the age of 18,
got her BA at the age of 21, went back to school for her masters, which
she achieved at the age of 23. She decided to follow her
father’s path in life, going back for her doctorate, whose thesis
she successfully defended in 1998, at the age of 26. At the age
of 27, she was hired by Bard College as a mere associate professor of
Sociology.
In the past year, she has made some inroads into
this whole alleged mutant situation and has started setting herself up
as one of the premiere proponents of the idea that mutants do not
exist. Repeat, do not exist. Despite the so-called Black
Prom, Jean is still of the belief that it wasn’t mutants, that
someone was merely using that hysteria as a mask for their sinister
deeds. She was invited to Columbia University by Professor
Charles F. Xavier to speak at the Symposium. Having prepared her
speech, she went and gave a properly sedate commentary on exactly why
mutants didn’t exist. The Symposium was crashed by an
entity who called himself Magneto, and Jean Grey was willing to fight
for her beliefs, trying to prove in the face of his seeming abilities
that it was all stage trickery, smoke and mirrors, doing her best to
debunk the mutant theory head-on. Magneto let her live, despite
her best efforts to piss him off, and Jean Grey has returned to Bard
College, an instant unwilling media sensation.
15. Potential
Psionic - The
drugs and constant denial have wrought havoc on Jean Grey’s
mutant talents, yet she does have them, whether she wants them or not.
Jean has a potential, with time, training, and the overcoming of her
fears, to be one of the world’s premiere psionic talents, just
shy of Xavier in raw power, yet with the ability to surpass him simply
because she is fully psionic, while he is only a telepath. The
biggest barrier to Jean gaining control of her abilities is the fact
that she simply doesn’t believe in them. While the drugs
are a factor and would need time to get her through withdrawl from
them, psionic abilities are a function of belief and will.
Jean’s got the will, just not the belief. Telepathy -
Jean’s telepathic potential is unsurpassed. She could
conceivably transmit telepathically to the functional range of
telepathy. Here is the main skills she would be capable of if she ever
gained her powers, and their limits and such.
Communication - Jean
is able to speak without using her voice to one unshielded mind in her
vicinity, within 9 miles. This speech would be like calling
someone on the phone. Naturally, the distance decreases with
unfamiliarity with the mind being spoken to, any crowds in the area, or
if the mind is shielded. She can also receive telepathic
communications, but since she herself doesn’t know any telepaths,
it would come as some surprise.
Auras - Most telepaths
can see ‘the lights’, the beauty that is psionic auras.
Everyone has an aura unless they’re dead, even if
they’re not a telepath. Like most telepaths, Jean can see
these things. The busier the mind, the more frenetic the aura.
Sometimes, she has to force herself /not/ to see these things,
because reacting to them will get her looked at funny by someone who
doesn’t understand her or see why she’s reacting the way
she is. Also, this is why most telepaths could see if they were
blind, such as Psylocke in the canon. Jean would be able to,
blinded or with her eyes closed, see using the telepathic lights to
guide her. Think of it like a telepathic night-vision goggles.
Clarity isn’t as good, but she could get around without
running into anything or anyone.
Empathy - Empathy
is a lesser aspect of telepathy. While it could be developed into
something sinister, such as screwing with someone’s emotions
(like Empath in the canon), for Jean it is merely her being able to
sense the emotions of those around her. Also like her telepathy,
it is something she sometimes has to screen out. Large crowds or
strong emotions have a bad habit of getting past the barriers in her
mind against such things, and they become harder to screen out. Shields
- When one has half the world screaming in one’s head, one
creates barriers, or shields, to protect one’s mind. Jean
Grey has generated, out of sheer necessity, psi-shields around her
mind. They of course are untrained, so a skilled telepath such as
Emma or Xavier could break in with no difficulty, but most of the
psionic noise around her generated by unguarded thoughts or emotions is
screened out.
Mindlink - A
telepathic conference call is something that Jean is just barely able
to accomplish. It fatigues her greatly and generally gives her a
pounding headache. At this point, Jean can only mindlink herself
with two minds that are unshielded and familiar to her, within a radius
of 1 mile.
Astral Projection - Literally,
this ability is an out of body experience. Jean is capable, with proper
meditation of at least an hour, to project her consciousness out of her
body, for periods of up to an hour, ranging up to a distance of 1 mile.
As an astral image, she appears as a ghost to those who see her.
Naturally, psions would be able to see her better. While Jean is
out of her body, she retains no awareness of it, and she is completely
invulnerable to attack upon her body and upon her astral self.
Potential - Jean has vast potential to improve her telepathic ability.
She has enough raw power to rank in the second level behind such folks
as Xavier, the Shadow King, Emma Frost. It is merely
circumstances which have prevented her from attaining that sort of
skillset. It will be RPed over the course of time her gaining the
full powerset.
Telekinesis - Telekinesis
is the ability to affect the physical world through the power of the
mind. It is generally used as a physical force, such as bending
spoons, rather than an energy force, such as energy blasts. Jean
Grey has vast telekinetic potential, ranked in the first level.
Jean was never trained to use this ability, and she is afraid of
using it in manners that would injure or kill another; thus, she is
only a mere shadow of her canonical self with this ability. She
is capable of only three major stunts with her telekinetic abilities.
Push/Pull - The
easiest telekinetic trick Jean is capable of performing is moving
objects around. This would include things like pulling a book to
her, pushing a box into a corner, and other such mundane things.
She is capable of exerting a force of 1 ton, but since such a
force against a human being would be lethal, she generally uses just
enough to get the job done, generally in the 100 or 200 pound level.
The higher a strength she uses, the more quickly she tires out.
Levitation - By
exerting her telekinetic force downward and acting upon herself, she is
able to levitate herself off the ground up to a height of three
stories. This is a higher-end usage of her nebulous powers at
this time, so it strains her immensely. She can only hold herself
aloft for an hour before tiring out and falling. If she tries to
levitate others with her, she can only levitate up to another 500
pounds, and that decreases her hang time to fifteen minutes. If
she exceeds these limits, she will pass out. She, and anything
she is levitating, will fall down go splat. If she nears these
limits, she gets a nice pounding headache for her troubles.
Shield - The final
major trick Jean can perform with her telekinesis is the generation of
a shield. This shield can act like an umbrella in the rain, it
can protect her from incoming bullets, and it can dispell some
energy-based attacks. Right now, it is more of an instinctive
thing than something she has concentrated upon. Also, it is a
piecemeal sort of thing. She cannot generate big whomping
hemispheres to protect her and a billion people. Her shields are
half-shields, only capable of protecting half of her and anyone behind
the shield. The shield can only reach a size of a wide doorway.
Of course, if she made smaller shields, she could keep it up
longer before tiring. At this point, any shield can only take
about 2 tons of damage. The maximum amount of time her large
shield can hold out is a half-hour, assuming only a moderate barrage.
A heavy barrage reduces that time to 15 minutes.
16. Plans
My plans for Jean are fairly simple. Jean
isn’t anywhere near ready to join a team. Hell, she is more
likely to have a mental breakdown if it is revealed to her that she is
a mutant with vast potential. That whole denouement is my first goal,
something that will be teased over the course of time, until, and if,
she is able to take the fact that she’s something she firmly
believes doesn’t exist. Should be fun.
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