PLAYER NAME: Jenna PERSONAL LJ: </a></b></a>kami_llama OOC COMM?: Already there, bb. WELCOME WAGON?: Y EMAIL/MESSENGER(S): AIM = Avada Cadavre / MSN = KamisButterflies@hotmail.com TIMEZONE: EST
CHARACTER NAME(S): Anna Marie Raven (Rogue) FANDOM: X-Men BACKGROUND HISTORY: There are sooo many different X-Men continuities which involve Rogue, as she is one of the most popular X-Men characters. It is difficult, therefore, to sift through some of the knowledge of what happened when and where and why. However, the most "official" background story for Anna brings us to a small hippie commune in Mississippi. Anna was born into a small family, the only child of mother and father Pricilla and Owen. Her mother's sister, Carrie, also took a large role in raising young Anna. After the commune's failed attempt to contact a dreamrealm, Pricilla died and Carrie stepped in as Anna's mother-figure. However, Anna was always a bit rebellious, and her disdain for her father caused her to run away from the commune, resulting in her nickname -- and later mutant name -- Rogue.
Anna became involved at some point with a boy named Cody, whom she proceeds to kiss, as teenagers are wont to do. It was at this point that her mutant powers emerged -- the ability to absorb the memories, abilities, personalities and life energy of anyone with whom she makes skin-to-skin contact. This experience put Cody into a coma from which he would never wake. Rogue is understandably traumatized, but is found by a shapeshifting mutant named Mystique, who took the girl under her wing, and adopted her as a sort of daughter. Mystique isn't the most savory of characters, though, and often engaged in terrorist activities for mutant rights. While Anna was initially not so into the idea of being a terrorist, she developed a sort of apathy after absorbing the personality of another boy, and is eventually inducted into the Brotherhood of Mutants under Mystique's supervision.
Under Brotherhood orders, Rogue engaged in several very-less-than-lawful activities, and began to butt heads with another mutant named Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers.) Rogue confronted Carol on the woman's doorstep one night, and the resulting scuffle saw Anna permanently absorbing Carol's abilities and personality. This drove Anna temporarily insane, and she tried to kill Carol by throwing her off the Golden Gate Bridge. Fearing for her life and sanity, she turned to Charles Xavier, and much to the chagrin of the other members, is inducted into the X-Men team while Charles works with her to help her control her abilities. She earned the trust of the rest of the team after risking her life several times for them and people close to them, adequately branding her one of the "heroes."
While she never learned to fully control her inability to touch people, she is finally able to fully be herself again after transporting to another dimension and having Carol Danvers' personality removed from her psyche. The X-Men were divided into two teams, and Anna was assigned to a team with the mutant Gambit (Remy LaBeau.) They were immediately attracted to each other, and began an on-again off-again relationship that has spanned over several arcs and continuities, deviating now and then because of Remy's difficulty coping with a non-physical relationship.
TIMELINE SUMMARY: I'm taking Anna from the end of her 4-issue miniseries Rogue. In this series, it is explained that once yearly on the date that she sent him into a coma, Anna visits Cody at his hospital bedside. Bella Donna, Gambit's ex-lover, sends an assassin to end Cody's vegetative misery as part of poorly-contrived revenge against Anna. In the final issue, Anna is able to contact Cody's spirit through a psychic medium, and he tells her that he bears her no ill will, and asks that she move on before he crosses over.
PERSONALITY: Anna calls herself a southern belle, and being raised in Mississippi, she has a very distinct accent. However, at an early age, we are shown that she has a bit of a rebellious streak. This is what drives her away from her home in the first place, along with the bad relationship she had with her father in the first place. Despite this, she doesn't seem to have a very hard time at all trusting men. In fact, her relationship with Cody was really kind of sweet up until the point that she sent him into a vegetative state.
She is obviously a likable girl, as Mystique grew fond enough of her to treat her as a daughter. And indeed, Anna viewed Mystique as her mother, even going so far as to adopt Mystique's given name (Raven Darkholmme) as her own last name. (However, it is important to note that -- unlike most characters -- Anna's real name is not given until very late in the series. She often introduces herself as Rogue, and everyone is content to call her that. This is probably due to Mystique's influence on her views of mutant rights; that they should be the magnificent creatures they truly are rather than hiding behind a human name.) Rogue is quick to put her trust in people, but not stupid enough to let it linger if she's betrayed. In fact, later in the series she grows to despise Mystique after her adoptive mother morphs into a student at Xavier's school and seduces Gambit while Rogue is away on a mission.
As far as family ties, Anna is still very close to her Aunt Carrie in Mississippi, unable and unwilling to sever ties with the woman who raised her after her real mother's death. It is also revealed later in the series that Nightcrawler is in fact one of Mystique's biological children, and Rogue and Nightcrawler come to view each other as siblings. In a completely different continuity, Gambit and Rogue marry and have two children, so it is clear that they could have quite a strong loving relationship were it not for Remy's hangups.
Rogue is also impulsive. She will look before she leaps only if someone holds her back and shows her reason, doubly so if she is getting emotional. Her typical "heroic" streak shows her risking her own life -- unquestioningly -- several times in order to protect others, even those she doesn't know very well. You know, the sort of stupid heroics that make people jump into a burning building to save a child and a kitten. Though while she is very kind, it's rare to see her completely happy. Above almost anyone else in the series, Rogue truly considers her abilities to be a curse, and the denial of physical interaction often leaves her feeling very lonely and depressed, and her subsequent break-ups with Remy always left her feeling worthless and angry for not being able to give him what he wanted. The times in the comics when she is happiest are the few times that her powers are actually taken away, or when she meets someone she is able to make contact with and not send comatose.
She also has a penchant for calling everyone -- even enemies -- by the affectionate title "Sugah" (sugar). So figure that one the heck out.
SPECIAL ABILITIES: When Anna touches another person -- bare skin to bare skin -- she immediately begins to absorb into herself almost everything they are. Their memories, their abilities, their personality, and their life force are all transferred to her. If contact is maintained for long enough, these aspects will become a permanent part of her, and may very well send the other person into a vegetative state, or kill them very horribly and painfully as everything they are is sucked from them through their very skin. In the case of Carol Danvers, with whom she maintained the most contact of anyone, she absorbed Carol's abilities of flight, seventh sense, etc., and subsequently developed an entire alternate personality from residual spirit transfer. These abilities and the personality were all removed from her by other-dimensional forces granting her the opportunity of a new life, but the fact remains that it could happen.
SAMPLES THIRD PERSON: The first thing Anna realized was that she was not in the manor anymore.
It had been a nice night. It really had. Remy took her out to dinner, they came home, and Anna fell asleep in his arms while they watched a movie. On the couch. In front of the nocturnal students. For some reason, that seemed scandalous to her until she reminded herself that they were teenagers, and they understood -- had probably done far worse, in fact -- and that the Professor was always reminding her that she had to relax a little more when she was off-duty. So as improper and unprofessional as it seemed, she settled into a comfortable rest.
But this? Where was the comfortable couch? Where was the television, and the students crowding around the fuzzy softcore cable porn? ...where was Gambit? Marie sat up quickly and squinted at the sunlight shining in her eyes, confused beyond comprehension by the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat. She'd never been kidnapped before; not that she could remember, anyway. Sometimes it was hard to tell when you got too close to Blindspot. But her assumptions immediately went to her adoptive mother, Mystique, and she furrowed her brow with a quiet grumble.
Pressing a gloved hand to her face, she brushed stark-white bangs out of her eyes and glared up at the guard approaching her across the deck. He looked like an unpleasant sort. Well, if he was looking for a fight... Rogue stood and pulled her gloves off, slipping out of her jacket and letting them fall to the deck behind her. "What's cookin', Sugah?"
"Time to unboard. Come on, don't be difficult," the guard admonished, reaching out to take her arm.
"Unboard? N- no, don't-!" But then his hand closed around her wrist... and nothing happened. No choked gasp, no fleeting of color from his face, no rush of every thought and memory he'd ever had flooding into her head. Just touch... pure, simple touch.
Her eyes might as well have been dinner plates.
"What in blazes is goin' on...?"
FIRST PERSON: Well this is certainly an interestin' conundrum. One minute ah'm layin' on the couch with mah beau, next thing ya' know ah'm on a boat! And mah powers... they're gone. This is... well mah goodness, ah want to go dancin'! Ain't ever been dancin', couldn't ever get that close!
But first thing's first, ah guess. Ah need a place to stay... and a job.
Anyone got need for a mutie 'round here?
NOTE: I decided a few days after submission that I would not be writing her first-person journal entries in her accent. In logs, yes, because that makes sense. It would not make sense, however, for her to be physically writing out all her speech inflections. That would be taxing for her, and kind of annoying for anyone trying to decipher it.