trauma; exitvoid application
player.
NAME/HANDLE: coffee
PERSONAL JOURNAL: brewmegently (unused)
ARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: yes
CONTACT: brewmegently @ aim, froggy.mcgee @ gmail
OTHER CHARACTERS: none
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Terrance "Terry" Ward aka. Trauma
SERIES: Avengers: The Initiative | Trauma
CANON POINT: End of Issue 35 | End of Series
AGE: recently 20
APPEARANCE: in the suit | icon page
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: n/a
PERSONALITY: Trauma is, above all else, quiet. He's understated and a bit withdrawn, intensely private about his own feelings and personal life. Perpetually downbeat, he can appear sullen and apathetic - but that's not really accurate. Underneath the outer "emo kid" layer, Trauma is a very compassionate person, sensitive whether or not he talks about it, and very devoted to helping other people.
Terry's focus is, and always has been, very outwardly faced. He doesn't like too much attention, partly because it's usually negative. As much as he hates to be invisible, he's spent his whole life working at staying in the background - if he doesn't get close to people, doesn't care, and can't access their emotions, he can't use his abilities on them. This is a lesson he learned the hard way after putting his mother in a mental institution by turning into her worst fear. When he was younger, Trauma would often force others away with a dark, dry wit, and sometimes overt emotional aggression. He would lash out at anyone who tried to break his barriers and get too close. Easily threatened, he would often end up manifesting his powers and driving the final nail into the coffin of any close relationship he tried to form. Because of this, he grew up lonely, sullen, and disliking the world, and hating himself and his own powers. He still presents this outward persona to some extent - despite the development of his ability and his knowledge of how to control it and use it for good and the distinct mellowing of how he presents himself, he still has an aversion to people getting too close, knowing too much about where he came from and who he is inside.
Fortunately, after learning from Dani Moonstar how to control his ability, and being steered by her down the path of "good," he developed an interest in how to use his abilities to help others, and in the time since then he has honed that interest into a fine art. He's turned his previously angry outward focus into interest in other people's problems, which he handles with a genuine compassion. Terry, having been alone and having dealt with so many awful things wrought by his own hands - from having driven his mother crazy to indirectly causing the tragic death of a fellow cadet - isn't one to judge others. Regardless of what the person has done, how awful or guilty they feel, Terry will still make every attempt to help them. Registered as an MFCC (Marriage, Family, and Child Counselor), Terry spent a couple of years as a resident therapist on the Initiative base, and though his work for the Initiative was soured by his forced actions at Camp HAMMER during the Dark Reign of Norman Osborne, therapy is the work that he finds the most rewarding. It's his redemption, the one good use for his dark and brutal ability, his way to make up to his mother and MVP and all the people he'd hurt.
Despite this turnaround, Terry still suffers from the deep internal wounds he got growing up and in the first part of his Initiative training. This isn't helped much by the fact that he still refuses to get too close to other people - he might care about them and offer all the support in the world, but he won't open up in return. Where he previously used emotional aggression, he now uses clinical detachment, but the effect is the same - he keeps people away while being open for them to approach and open up. Not talking about his own issues has allowed his inherent lack of self-worth and guilt over what he's done to continue consuming him. He has no catharsis other than what he shares with Abby, his teammate who's gone through things as rough as him and who he bonded with while making her his first "client," and time with her is a rare commodity. This lack of self-worth and sharing also means that Trauma has a tendency to allow people he cares about to walk on him - he will take the brunt of any emotional disappointment or danger to spare others around him, often in ways they don't even notice.
Terry feels that he owes the world, and that anything he does is simply to pay back good for all the issues he's caused. Later in canon, he says that MVP's death was his fault, taking the blame on himself without question when others were being faced with the consequences of what happened. His guilt is a major part of who he is, something that's been with him from a young age, and it's what drives him to refuse to open up and put himself last. This state of affairs hasn't been helped by the events he recently went through in canon - blackmailed with a promise from The Hood to help his mother, Trauma was forced to use his therapy to keep several superpowered villains and neutral superheroes in a malleable state, mentally. This ate at him, causing him nightmares and extreme guilt that was driving him to depression. Unable to continue violating the Hippocratic Oath by failing to genuinely help those under his care, Trauma became so emotionally and mentally exhausted that he was able to be possessed by his "father," Nightmare, until he was reminded by Abby that he had friends and realized that Penance - the primary victim of his forced substandard therapy - forgave him and saw the ways he had tried (albeit underhandedly) to help. This, as well as Trauma's persistent attempts to help Penance despite being told not to (by giving him a pet cat he had previously owned in order to try to unlock his memories) shows the depths of Trauma's compassion and desire to help others.
Terry has some confidence in his abilities, while at the same time not particularly valuing himself - on many occasions in canon, he's put himself out as the point man, the "big gun," who would take care of a threat that hurt dozens of other superheroes. He stepped up to a raging out of control Hulk, the Omega-level armed clone of MVP, and Ragnarok, a part-android clone of Thor, telling others to stay back and get out, and that he had it. In these situations, he always ended up seriously hurt, and once he even ended up dead, but he continues to do it, over and over, showing both his devotion to good and lack of concern for his own well-being.
Finally, another defining trait of Trauma's is that he's very lost, in a way. While the incident with Nightmare helped him to understand why he has the powers he has, while leaving many other things in the shadows. Trauma wants to find out more about himself, to make sure that what happened when he was taken over by Nightmare never happens again. While being pulled into Exitvoid won't allow him to find details of his past, it just might help him figure out who he is to a deeper extent.
Terry, altogether, has a lot to learn - about himself, about where he's going, and where he's been. Fortunately, he's pretty resilient.
ABILITIES:
Telepathic Shapeshifting: Trauma has limited telepathy, allowing him to seek out the fears of those around him, which he then uses to change his physical form into a manifestation of that fear. It is of note that, while transformed into a person's fear, he will shitttalk them to enhance the fear and, as this shittalking has come out of him in languages he doesn't even know before, it's likely that this is part of the telepathic connection and serves as part of the transformation.
At the point I'm taking him from, he has the ability to choose which fear of several he wants to turn into, and can subtly force his ability into a therapeutic purpose by helping people face their fears. The ability doesn't work against robots or those without emotions, and can easily be brushed off by people who have faced their fears, forcing Trauma back into his human form.
Resurrection?: While he doesn't have any sort of enhanced healing (he's been beaten within an inch of his life several times and had to recover in the Infirmary every time), Trauma has canonically been killed and come back to life, even after his body had been autopsied and embalmed. This is likely because of his part-demonic heritage, though he doesn't know that at the point I'll be pulling him from in canon.
Skills: I'm not sure if this counts as abilities, but Terry has picked up many skills through the Initiative, from basic military training and physical training to first aid and lifesaving techniques, as well as use of most firearms and driving. He is also a licensed therapist and has taken courses in Superhuman Ethics.
POSSESSIONS: At the point I'm taking him from in canon, all Terry has on him is the suit on his back (jacket, red button up shirt, slacks, belt, and boots - besides undergarments), and whatever is in the pockets. I'm going to say there's probably his wallet, some keys, and some loose change in there, if that. He doesn't really have anything useful.
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:
[A video post engages, showing Trauma, looking a little worse for the wear, his hair tousled, dirt smudged on his cheek along with dark red splatters of what might be blood. He forces a small half-smile, but it's very obviously not genuine.]
Things have been pretty rough lately, haven't they? They've been rough since I got here. It doesn't look like it'll be getting any easier anytime soon, either.
[He lifts his hand and rubs his knuckles against his jaw, where stubble is just starting to grow in, glancing downward.]
What I'm trying to say is this - if there's anyone who needs someone to talk to, someone to help them face their fears, completely non-judgementally, I'm a licensed therapist, and I'm qualified to give some help. Getting therapy doesn't make you weak, and it doesn't mean you don't know how to cope, it's just another way to get the edge on the field.
[He looks slightly embarassed, and tilts his head forward a bit, hair falling in his face.]
That having been said...if you think you could use something like that, feel free to contact me by email, or in a private reply to this post. I'm here, and I want to help.
THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
It had been a hell of a night - recon, fighting monsters, trying his hand at offense on the most recent mission, and Trauma felt exhausted - Initiative training or not, he just wasn't physically cut out for long, intensive bouts of fighting, scouting, running, crawling. He didn't have the physical stamina, strong as he was, and maybe he could admit, lying on his back on his bunk in his room by himself, that he wasn't exactly mentally cut out for it either. Trauma had been trained to be the type to psych himself up for the big show-down, the battle that only he could fight, the 'end boss' battle that would be over in 10 minutes. Whether he lost or not was immaterial - recovery time was one thing, skulking around through underbrush and finding the mental strength to keep quiet while rat creatures were biting him and acid puddles splashed against his forearms - stuck and started eating at his flesh - was another thing entirely.
When it was all over, he didn't want to do much more than sleep. The last thing he wanted was to foist his damaged arms and body on one of the overworked doctors. Beyond that, the last place a person with abilities like him, exhausted to the point of seeing double, should be was around sick and injured people, scared and vulnerable. No. He didn't need the headache of keeping his ability in check and burdening what limited resources they had. So he just went back to his bed, lay down, the bites littering his shoulders and upper arms ignored, acid guck scraped primitively off his forearms along with chunks of flesh. Everything hurt, and he was exhausted, bleeding, beaten - and all he wanted was some damn sleep.