OOC: App
Basics
Character Name: Clarice Ferguson, alias Blink
Username: andyoullmissit
Fandom: Marvel (Age of Apocalypse timeline)
Played By: n/a
Icon: http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/111998688/39837462
Canon Character Section (disregard if applying for an original character)
Physical Description: Blink is a mutant, and it shows. Her skin is lavender, and she has darker purple markings on her face. Her eyes are a pale color that varies between light blue and green, with no visible pupil. She appears to be in her early twenties, slender but athletically built. Her hair is purple, and is often pulled back to reveal pointed, elfin ears.
Sexuality: As of this canon point, Blink has only had one canon romantic relationship, which was heterosexual. However, she also had amnesia at the time, and he turned out to be Annihilus’ human form (see her history).
Part of the reason she was able to get close to him, however, was because of the amnesia. As a child, Clarice was sexually abused, and has yet to cope with this properly. She has had crushes, and lost her virginity to Ahmyor, but has yet to take a lover since. Partly this has been because she’s busy with the end of the world, but a lot of it is due to lingering trust issues and trauma, from both Ahmyor and her childhood..
In short, she is a 1-1.5 on the Kinsey scale, with all the baggage in the world.
History: (History adapted from http://marvel.com/universe/Blink_%28Earth-295%29, http://uncannyxmen.net/db/spotlight/showquestion.asp?faq=10&fldAuto=104, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_%28comics%29, with my own edits and additions.)
Clarice Ferguson, later known as Blink, was born on the island of Cartusia, in the Bahamas. Her strange appearance revealed her to be a mutant at birth (though her powers would not manifest for another ten years or so). Her parents accepted this fact surprisingly well, but feared the local population would not be as understanding. When Clarice was four, the Fergusons moved to Miami, Florida. They hoped a large city like Miami would be home to a mutant population where an older Clarice would be able to socialize.
Clarice was a child when Apocalypse rose and his Horseman, Mister Sinister, took over Miami. She saw her father die trying to defend his family; her mother futilely tried to hide her, swearing that they wouldn’t let her be taken, but she was killed as well. She and her older brother were then discovered by Sinister and his right-hand, the Dark Beast (Hank McCoy). Her brother, a human, was killed and the clearly mutant 8-year-old Clarice was sent to the Core in Portland for forced labor and further study.
She grew up in the pens -- concentration camps for humans and mutants who resisted Apocalypse’s new world order. Conditions were terrible, and there was often not enough food or shelter. Sugar Man was at one point the jailer in charge of cellmates Clarice and Illyana Rasputin (the long-lost sister of X-man Piotor Rasputin, aka Colossus), and he sexually abused both of them on a nightly basis. Eventually, Clarice’s powers manifested, and she was sent to Manhattan, where Dark Beast experimented on her, refining her powers. While most of McCoy’s subjects ended up dead, their DNA becoming part of his genetic soup, he considered Blink something special, later calling her “a work of art.”
Clarice’s life finally changed for the better when she was being transported from one facility to another. The transport was attacked by two of the X-Men, Sabretooth and Weapon X, and while it hadn’t been their original mission to rescue survivors, Sabretooth took pity in the girl and took her along after freeing her. He sensed that she must be something special, considering the way she had survived everything that had been thrown at her. Sabretooth, aka Victor Creed, became a surrogate father to the young teenager and among the X-Men, Clarice found herself part of a family again.
Clarice, who began going by “Blink,” grew into adulthood with the X-Men. Sabretooth taught the girl how to fight, and the X-Men helped Blink to cope with her powers. At first, she seemed to get along fine but after a while, the X-Men’s life of constant battle and always being on the move began to depress her. It seemed that no matter what they did, Apocalypse would win in the long run. For each life the X-Men saved, someone else would die. With every day, she regressed more into herself, and Creed was ill-equipped to help. Fortunately, another teammate, Morph, saw that she needed no drill sergeant but someone to express that they cared, and he managed to break through Blink’s depression by making her feel needed.
The X-Men had learned that Apocalypse was on the moon and only Blink’s teleportation power could transport the team there. It was the first time she had attempted a teleportation of that distance, and the success boosted her confidence in her own abilities tremendously. However, shortly after arriving, the entire team but Blink herself were captured by the Horseman Death and his Inhuman slaves. Unexpected help arrived in the form of Prelate Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, who helped Clarice to free the X-Men for his own private reasons. Apocalypse escaped to another base, but the X-Men returned home, Blink having earned herself a full spot on the team. As an X-Man, she devoted most of her time to preventing other young mutants like herself from being taken by Apocalypse's forces.
In her late teens, Blink had a falling out with Magneto due to her impulsive nature. Sabretooth had made her into an excellent soldier, but she led with her emotions and was bad at following orders. When Magneto threatened to remove her from the team, she ventured into Apocalypse’s stronghold on her own, determined to prove herself. Inside, she witnessed an encounter between Apocalypse’s horseman and son, Holocaust, and Blastaar’s forces from the Negative Zone, who were attempting to invade Earth. Thinking that the strange beings might be potential allies for the battle against Apocalypse, Blink followed them into the portal leading back to the Negative Zone before Holocaust could capture her. However, something went wrong during the trip and Clarice blacked out. When she came to, she found herself stranded on a rock, floating in space, with a man pointing a gun at her head. When asked her name, Blink realized that she didn’t remember anything; she had complete amnesia.
Though unaware of her previous existence, Blink hadn’t lost her fighting skills, and tried to overcome her captor. Soon the pair found themselves evenly matched and Blink managed to convince the stranger that she’d only acted in self defense. Once they’d stopped fighting, he introduced himself as Ahmyor, a rebel who wanted to oust the Negative Zone’s tyrannical leader, Blastaar, and reinstall their fallen ruler, Annihilus, the lesser of two evils. While she knew neither one of the tyrants, Blink found the concept of rebellion familiar and joined Ahmyor’s group. Once more, her teleportation power came in handy, enabling the rebels to launch several attacks against Blastaar’s unsuspecting supporters. Evenutally, Blink fell in love with Ahmyor. However, as she recalled her past bit by bit, she began to wonder if her lover’s cause was just, and whether she truly loved him or just clung to him out of having nobody else to turn to.
The couple were finally captured by Blastaar’s forces, and the evil tyrant revealed to the stunned Blink that Ahmyor was, in fact, Annihilus himself. Blink felt betrayed by Ahmyor, who plead with her to listen to him as they both waited in prison for Blastaar’s eventual retribution. Just as she was amnesiac, he had no idea of his earlier life as Annihilus; Ahmyor was an earlier, humanoid dormant form of the insectoid Annihilus, to which he’d regressed when Blastaar defeated him. Now that he knew the truth, he was slowly transforming again.
As Blastaar was about to have Ahmyor/Annihilus executed in front of a roaring crowd, Blink realized she believed Ahmyor, and decided to help him. She escaped from her cell and rushed to his side. Blastaar planned to use Ahymor/Annihilus to activate Annihilus’ own doomsday device and destroy the universe, even as the part of him that was still Ahmyor pleaded with him to reconsider. Whether it was the adrenaline of battle or the shock of her lover’s imminent fate, Blink’s past came rushing back to her. Though she tried to bring Ahmyor with her to Earth, he said it was impossible, and demanded that she leave him to die. She used the last few of her quivers to free Ahmyor from the machine, destroy Blastaar’s ultimate weapon, and to save herself. She returned home to Earth, leaving Annihilus and the Negative Zone to their own fates.
The X-Men had searched for their missing teammate for weeks; Creed especially was beside himself at her disappearance. Blink told Creed everything about her adventures and her first love, and he helped her to deal with her resulting emotional turmoil in his gruff but genuine way.
On her return to Earth, Blink fully integrated herself into the team and played by Magneto’s rules. Clarice became a trusted member of the team, and would often baby-sit young Charles, Rogue and Magneto’s son, or would accompany the more experienced X-Men on their missions.
Eventually, the team met the time-displaced Bishop. From him, they learned that their entire timeline was a mistake - Charles Xavier had died before his time, and it should have been he who founded the X-Men (who would have been strong enough to prevent Apocalypse’s rise had they been founded earlier). Magneto realized that the stranger was telling the truth and came up with a plan to restore the timeline. Three things were needed: a time-traveler; a piece of the M’Kraan crystal, functioning as a nexus to all of creation; and a precog, to pick the right timeline once they would travel back. Magneto orchestrated this, even as his wife Rogue and his older son, Quicksilver, continued to fight for the flawed world that was all these X-Men had ever known. Even if the world wasn’t the true reality, it was still their world and they would continue fighting for it until they died.
On one reconnaissance mission alongside her fellow X-Man, Sunfire, Blink discovered that Holocaust planned to start another culling in Chicago. Discovered and outmanned, Blink teleported herself and Sunfire back to the X-Men's secret base. Unfortunately, she led one of Apocalypse's Prelates back with her. The X-Men were able to defeat the mutant named Delgado before he could do any harm (largely due to Blink closing the portal with half of him on each side), but Blink was still chastised for her carelessness. The news of the imminent culling, however, outweighed her impulsive decision.
Rogue took a squad of X-Men to oppose Holocaust and rescue as many humans as they could. Despite the fact that the mission was effectively a suicide run, Blink and Sabretooth were among those X-Men who volunteered. As Blink’s family had died in such a culling, this was the perfect opportunity to exact some form of revenge. Sabretooth was looking for revenge as well; he wanted to settle an old score with Holocaust by alone, and asked Blink to send him after the Horseman to buy the rest of the team some time in Chicago, against Rogue’s direct orders. Blink complied, fearing she’d never see Creed again but knowing that the showdown was something he needed to do.
When Blink shortly after saw the ravaged body of her mentor, assuming him dead, she overreacted and sought Holocaust by herself. At first, he laughed at the Blink’s effort, but underestimating her (and taunting her about defeating Creed) turned out to be a mistake. Using her teleportation power more aggressively than ever, Clarice not only destroyed major parts of the Holocaust’s Infinite Processing Plant, but also was able to best him with some tricky maneuvering, dropping Holocaust into a tank of genetic goo. By the time Holocaust escaped from this trap, the other X-Men had arrived, leaving him with no other option that escape to Apocalypse’s stronghold. Blink was reunited with Sabretooth, not dead after all, and the X-Men returned to Westchester to regroup.
Back at their headquarters, Blink and her teammates learned that the other teams had all performed their tasks (in some cases, at a terrible loss of life); however, Magneto and his son Charles had been kidnapped by Apocalypse, and the M’Kraan crystal shard had been stolen by his forces. Blink teleported the assembled team into Apocalypse’s stronghold, where they eventually managed to free the X-Men’s leader and carry out his plan. Bishop was sent back in the timestream to set events right. In what seemed to be the last minutes of the Age of Apocalypse, the heroes kept on fighting and looked to win the battle, even as they expected the Human High Council to bomb Northern America with nukes at any moment, killing them all.
Just before the missiles struck, or before her universe was wiped out of existence (as the events were both imminent), Blink fell through a portal into another world. In the comics, she landed in a desert, beginning the Exiles story line, but here she landed in Baedal instead.
Powers: Blink has the ability to teleport herself and others at will. This ability has been enhanced by Dark Beast’s experiments and by her training with the X-Men. She can teleport a range of sizes, from large masses, including sizable groups of people, to small objects or only parts of objects. She can open portals that displace projectiles, and even enemies that threaten her. Her canon range is as close as a few inches and as far as the Earth to the moon.
She can also focus her ability into short, transparent, crystal-like javelins, which teleport whatever persons or objects they touch. She can charge her javelins so they can cut through objects by teleporting the matter elsewhere as they strike, or they can be charged to stun opponents unconscious by putting them "out of phase." She implies that, given a moment to focus, she can control how long this unconsciousness should last. She usually keeps a supply of these javelins in a quiver around her back, but can make them, one at a time, at will.
Her teleportations are always accompanied by a "blink!" sound, from which she takes her codename.
Talents/Abilities:: Clarice has proven many times to be a skilled hand-to-hand fighter; it is unknown whether her remarkable agility is simply the result of about a decade of training or is enhanced as consequence of her mutation. Either way, she’s a formidable opponent, and is often underestimated at first glance.
Personality:
Clarice is, first and foremost, a survivor. She has lived through a great deal of trauma, and it has shaped her into the person she’s become, for both good and ill and sometimes in seemingly contradictory ways.
One of the first things that those who know her would describe is both deep-seated trust issues and the capacity for intense loyalty. Watching her parents and her brother die when she was a child left a deep impression, and the abuse (sexual and otherwise) that she suffered consequently hammered home the lessons that no one would take care of her if she didn’t take care of herself, and that no one she loved was immune from being taken away.
Some of that damage was, in part, healed by her relationship with Creed, but given that he was a soldier and that no X-Men could promise to live out the day as an enemy of Apocalypse, her affection remains tempered by caution at the best of times. Her love for Ahymor, likewise, didn’t help her ability to rely on others, considering the way it ended. That said, she’s well used to working in a team and now sees the necessity of trust in a military if not a personal scope. She does have friendships, as well as a deep affection for Magneto’s son Charles; her issues are not unusual in her world, and will probably stand out more starkly in Baedal than they do in her canon.
She’s developed an edge of sarcasm as a defense mechanism, but she’s more serious than inclined to jokes - it’s more likely to come out as taunts against her enemies or impatient jabs at allies in the worst case. As a teenager, she was rebellious and headstrong, often unwilling to take orders; she’s grown out of that, but the impulse to talk back remains.
She has zero tolerance for the strong hurting the weak, and finds it hard to stand by and watch injustice done, even for a greater purpose. She’s not averse to rule-breaking when it’s needed, and as she can more than handle herself in a fight, she will sometimes go looking for trouble. She has a vengeful streak, and those who hurt her or her loved ones personally will get no mercy from her if she’s in a position to make them suffer.
Clarice has some manifestations of PTSD. Flashbacks and nightmares are among the most prominent, though they aren’t so debilitating as to keep her from functioning. Her anger may also have to do with this. She doesn’t talk about her time in the pens, especially, if she can possibly avoid it.
Object: On her person, she’ll have her quiver of javelins. I waive any other object; as far as she knows, her world was just destroyed, and so she wouldn’t expect it.
Reason for playing:
Blink has long been one of my favorite characters, though she is a new muse for me. I am interested in the challenge of playing someone so shaped by a world full of horror thrown into such a different (if still horrifying) setting. Also, we have a kick-ass Marvel cast who enabled me, and I don’t regret a thing.
Gods: It seems like she might appeal to Ceith, considering her powers. Alternately, Gediron, considering what she’s survived through; she’s pretty thoroughly a soldier, by this point, even if her war was mostly resistance fighting.